As usual for Steam, most of the reviews for games that turn out to be super popular are just memes or uninformative nonsense, so for anyone still on the fence that hasn't actually bought it yet:

Palworld is a really fun game and has the potential to turn into something really great, but it has a lot of rough edges, especially on the base management side. At the time of review it's onyl just into Early access, and this is exactly the sort of thing that Early Access periods should help the developers improve upon.

The main gameplay loop is fun and addictive. Avoiding any controversy about gen AI and how much they may or may not be ripping of Pokemon, the creatures are cute and funny and the combat and creature mechanics are fairly smooth and enjoyable.

Combat is fun, the beasties have a good selection of abilities and it's generally really enjoyable heading out exploring and capturing new critters. The main issue at the moment on this side of the game is that the enemy AI and pathing is currently a bit broken at times. Enemies will quite frequently get stuck on or even in bits of scenery and can very easily be cheesed. This is especially evident in base raids.

On the base management side of things, it's certainly still playable and the whole survival game hook of learning new crafting recipes and finding new materials to gradually enhance your base is addictive.

Where Palworld does need most work though IMO is that it has positioned the base management halfway inbetween the traditional survival genre and an automation game, but it lacks the refinements that decent automation games usually provide.

In most survival games the player(s) are responsible directly for all of the crafting, gathering and storage logistics. Conversely, in automation games the player tends to designate these tasks to AI minions or sets up logistics to perform them. In Palworld the player needs to rely on the Pals to do most of the crafting and refining etc, but the tools for this are really basic at this stage of development. Hopefully more features will be added in this regard but at the moment it's somewhat clunky and a little frustrating sometimes getting the tasks around the base properly prioritised and optimising storage and efficiency.

Negatives aside though, to reiterate - this is exactly why Ealry Access should exists, to refine the bugs and issues. Aside from the current gripes it's still a really fun experience and will hopefully only get better, assuming Nintendo don't sue the publishers into oblivion!