What I require out of a game is tons of enemies, varied level design, secret hunting, wide variety of weaponry, and decent blood and gore. It ticks those boxes just fine for me.

The point I'd make is whether or not the game has the thematic elements of WH40K, that to me means that your like a tanky dude that can dish out punishment alot of he needs to, while enemies are decent enough to come up against you if outnumbered, but chunky sometimes admittedly because they are changed and infused with energies of creation by "the Warp" which manifests them abilities many would consider to be demonic and powerful physical traits, health, armour, and powers.

That to me spells out a bit of strategy and fun, mixing up the usual formula. The thing that elevates this above a mere 3-4 out of 5 is the power that the player has to play with. Hes got STR weapons to deal with many of those TGHN enemies that are either unusally affected by the warp or have heavy armour like with chaos marines, so theres a weapon to deal with every enemy and then some out there. The level design might be the only part of this that doesn't necessarily fit into a boomer shooter. Although I rarely use the term the idea of a boomer shooter is the hidden secrets to find and constantly on the look out for, and the idea of being the hunter and the enemies mostly being like cannon fodder for your second or third gun you find. Spending most of the game using the 2nd or 3rd weapon or higher in the arsenal to clear out the cannon fodder after dealing with the supernaturally strong foes.. But in this game they switched that up a little.

However the level design and secrets are not a boomer shooter because they are not sprawling places with freedom of movement, and encourage you to play how you like to. There's a specific design in place here that rewards using "lore specific weapons for specific enemies" and "closed off arena type levels" - that isn't quite the true 'Boomer Shooter experience' that rewards exploration or use open level design. Where you can freely explore the environment in a way that suits you and play in a way that suits you. Aggressively or Conservatively, fast-paced or idiosyncratically and ammo saving, doing a chainsword finisher or merely shooting them dead, firing from corners or running around to avoid enemy missiles. Here in Boltgun you only really play one way, there are many ways to gib enemies often to make sure that the enemies die quickly or to make sure that the Aspiring Champions don't get back up. The pink horrors can and do spawn two blue horrors, so gibbing must be done regularly in this game. The game does indeed require some skill. So, if people complain about dying too much it really is just a skill issue.

Though to be honest that many Boomer Shooters are that there really isn't Serious Sam or Painkiller games are not really fast paced play how you like games. They are arena shooters primarily. The game uses fog, has fast and silent enemies, and much slower movement for the player unless you sprint constantly which has a delay to switch directions, and enemies are distinct to show where the Daemons or Infected enemies appear (daemonic and mechanical enemies like flamers or heavy flamers). What really keeps the game away from a Boomer Shooter is that it really does have some fast enemies, I'm not expecting that at all but it fits the arena because they are supposed to close in on you from many different directions. I get why they did it that way to be honest. Nurglings, cultists, and flamers are supposed to be meant to be crowd controlled by the boltgun, shotgun, and chainsword, and some minut gibbing options for pink horrors and aspiring champions like krak grenades, heavy bolters, plasmagun, and meltagun.

Overall this game delivers on the some of the best of the nanogenre of Arena Shooters and thus is supposed to be; not exploration based but "mid-paced close-quarter combat shooter" where you can get flanked or outnumberred easily, and that doesn't hold your hand or tell you what to do even when there is no clear indication of what to do because of the need for multiple paths and keys required to open doors often. There really isn't any game out there that has this combination of game-play elements. Its starts off like it might challenge that formula at some point early in the game by giving you a ounce of freedom of movement, but not the game you think its going to be. This is all about crowd control, and frequent use of sprint to not get cornered to get over rushing nugrlings of other unspeakable horrors. Ammo conservation is totally unecessary, like I said, theres only one correct way to play and its in-between aggressive and conservative, depending on how well you are doing in the arena areas.

Overall summary of the games elements
+ Sounds are fantastic
+ Visuals are pretty high up there for a FPS
+/- Mid-paced speed gameplay and a Arena Shooter, clearly designed for specific weapons in mind for specific weapons and crowd control tactics
+/- No weapon or upgrades progression, so character wise, you simply stay the same throughout the game besides higher tier weapons being easier to find
+/- Handholding is minimised, but this can be frustrating to be lost sometimes as to where the route is for the key
+/- Aspiring champions are a pain to deal with, because they seem to swing slowly but they hit you instantly at the beginning of their swing, impossible to get used to
+/- Too much emphasis on gibbing enemies
- Chainsword feels little underpowered
- Bosses are far too hard, so is the highest difficulty
- You are easily overwhelmed by enemies at certain moments of this game
- Not a Boomer Shooter, its a Arena Shooter, so this counts as a minus because its advertised as one