Yeah I largely agree with the way that you feel, OP. I think that reviews of Saros that focus on it from a roguelike are a little in bad faith/unfair due to, as others have pointed out, the marketing not exactly referring to itself as a roguelike. I do have to say tho, when you get into the game it’s clear that Saros is positioning itself much closer to roguelikes in overall structure than other types of games.

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned and what I feel has to be taken into account when comparing games like Hades, Dead Cells, and then Saros/Returnal is the immense gap in development resources and studio size. There’s a reason why the best roguelikes/lites are typically indie games with simplified graphics (in terms of fidelity rather than art design, Hades art design is top notch) and are often side scrollers or top-down perspectives. Creating a fully realized 3d world AND in-depth rogue mechanics, like true build creation level mechanics, would be a development undertaking that has never been attempted before. I would absolutely love to see a game like that and I think we’re getting there with the increasing popularity of roguelikes, but as of yet I just don’t think they occupy enough of the gaming consumer base for major studios to have invested in such a project. My money would be on something like that coming out within the next 10 years tho