Space Hulk: Deathwing Enhanced Edition (PC) Review

While there was definitely room for improvement, the original Deathwing came pretty close to nailing that unique, baroque, and gory Warhammer vibe and look. There are definitely far more interesting locales in that universe in terms of design potential, but while a Space Hulk is nothing more than a "boring" (compared to other parts) big ball of dead spaceships that roams the endless cosmos, it's a pretty interesting place lore-wise, as is pretty much anything in the Warhammer universe.

Unfortunately, Space Hulk: Deathwing does little with the setting at hand, as the plot is just decent when it could be awesome. As a result, players will get to visit all sorts of impressive areas, but few will really care, especially if not very knowledgeable of what is in front of their eyes. In other words, atmosphere can't do much on its own. Even if the story was far better, however, the core game way too simplistic, repetitive, and, most importantly, full of technical problems.

Luckily, most problems of this nature have been fixed, or at least polished. The frame-rate is far more stable, the exit-to-desktop issues have disappeared, loading times are better, and so on. These fixes can't do much to the core experience, however, because, at the end of the day, Deathwing's main flaw remains its highly bland level design, painfully slow pace, and only slightly entertaining game mechanics.

Like the similar in tone and concept Space Hulk: Ascension Edition, the gameplay mostly boils down to "slowly move through many a dark corridor for a couple of minutes, and then shoot a swarm of alien scum," then rinse and repeat. That was a turn-based strategy, though; this is a co-op first-person shooter, so everything should be a lot faster than this. It's understandable that the Terminator Space Marines are supposed to be bipedal tanks, but this just doesn't feel fun.

Due to its nature, this also requires handling the rest of the ream via commands, but the marines are somewhat... dumb, as they expect everything from the player, whether that's healing their own wounded behinds, or simply staying out of the way. Playing with a bunch of friends is, of course, better, if only by a little, but it's a darn shame that not much care was given to the solo experience. One has to wonder what exactly has been enhanced in here...