AB2012: As for Doom Eternal, from what I'm hearing it certainly wouldn't be the first game to lose a lot of its 'simple fun' charm by starting to take itself too seriously in later sequels. I'm wondering how much of the "survival" mechanics shoehorned in it that a lot of people don't seem to like (eg, perma starvation of ammo) are the result of the devs listening too much to a certain self-proclaimed 'hardcore' audience who prefer grind and being 'funneled' into a specific style of play over freedom of gameplay / exploration. It sounds like it's ended up the FPS equivalent of those "Survival" genre games which start out reasonably well balanced before degenerating into
"I just sold 3 diamond rings and still can't afford a can of beans, I need to eat 24 meals per day, I will freeze to death in 90 seconds on a mild autumn day, and I just beat a small rat 500x times with a spiked club without making a scratch because the weapon was the 'wrong counter'" syndrome...
This is definitely a thing in some other series, but this one is more complicated. It's more that after hearing all the praise for the new mechanics in 2016... the ammo and health being tied to combat, causing a "rhythm"... they went way overboard with those ideas. "People like having to get ammo from killing, so let's make you have very little ammo at all times so you have to do it more!" That's just one example, but that kind of design philosophy permeates the whole game. I remarked elsewhere they went "up their own ass" with it, and I think this is a case where that colorful metaphor is very well used.
A lot of people hated those mechanics in 2016, and they will
looooathe this game. I thought they were okay then, but are now waaaaay overdone, making the game much less enjoyable but still okay. 6-7 out of 10, basically.