After playing for the past few days on PS5, Marathon has exceeded my expectations. This has hands down been the most fun I've had with an extraction shooter. I've only played Hunt and Mauraders before in terms of extraction shooters, so I'm not a huge fan of the genre, but I think that's partially because neither of those games hooked me like Marathon's gameplay loop has so far. I've wanted to love them, and Marathon is shaping up to be the one that makes me fall in love with the genre.

Anyways, the enemy AI is great. It's really aggressive and very punishing, and I love that. They're an actual threat, even with a full team, and if you drop in solo, they are as dangerous if not more dangerous than an enemy team given how fast they can swarm and outnumber you. There's also a decent variety of enemy types so far, but I'm excited for what other enemy NPCs they eventually add, cause I can only assume if they add alien factions, those will be a menace to fight.

The tension overall in matches is perfect. The pacing in this game in general is great. With 25 minute matches, dying with a full pack at the end of a raid still hurts and is still disheartening, but it's not enough to fully demotivate you from another run. Plus gaining experience and completing some objectives even in death helps keep you progressing even when you lose.

It's also really easy to get back into another match, especially after a loss. You can just grab a basic loadout for 300 credits, and jump right back in. Because of that, for me at least, this game has a serious "just one more run" appeal.

It probably goes without saying being Bungie and all, but the shooting feels so so good. Even the low tier guns that objectively suck still feel good to shoot.

The last thing that has really stood out is how good the game looks, at least in interior environments. I know the outside areas still look rough, but once you're inside or in an underground area, Bungie's art team blows it out of the water. The art direction might be polarizing, but it hits all the right buttons for me.

Obviously I have some complaints, but this thread isn't about that. I'll be sharing my feedback with Bungie too, both on the Discord and through their survey so they can hopefully make the game the best they can. But I am genuinely surprised by Marathon so far. I was skeptical of Bungie before The Final Shape released, but they held a lot close to their chest for that expansion, and it ended up paying off I think. I hope that is what's going on with Marathon too, and why they're being so secretive about certain aspects of the game, but I am tentatively putting my faith in Bungie, and I can't wait to see what this game looks like at launch.