Recent reviews by Zephyr

After a decent amount of play ill start with the good. The campaign is solid, there is a decent amount of variety between the environments, vehicles and enemy units and the graphics look great. The story is fine, its tone stays more grounded compared to the later halo games which works well in context.
The main issues with the game lie within the multiplayer modes. There is occasional input lag, the sound mixing is completely off and the open progression system from the original has been replaced with a season pass linear structure.
A lot of players do not like the "DMR" starting loadout which does not bother me personally, but there is a pronounced aim assist for players using controllers. This does gives an unfair advantage to players using them. Respawns seem slightly buggy, both teams occasionally get spawned into groups of enemy players but from my own experience, this is uncommon.
Overall I think the game is worth the price I paid for Reach alone but if you are a competitive enthusiast you may be better off waiting for patches and further releases in the collection.

Barotrauma is an in depth submarine sim. It borrows a lot of its mechanics from other games. "Space Station 13" is an obvious inspiration here.
The focus of Barotrauma is to carry out various missions whilst acting as a crew member in different types of submarine. You have multiple classes each of which have specific skill sets and can operate in different ways. A captain is better at navigation and a mechanic can fix broken equipment faster than other crew.
When you are with cooperative players, it is fun and there are a lot of threats to deal with such as traitors amongst the crew or various types of hostile creatures. Navigating the ocean takes coordination and focus and the game has a decent amount of difficulty.
The atmosphere is well realised and the ocean feels dangerous and oppressive, the campaign style multiplayer mode is the best part of the game and hopefully it will be improved further with some content patches. Having to manage a shared pile of cash and equipment which persists between missions works well and there are a lot of ways this could be expanded.
My main issue with Barotrauma is the sheer amount of griefing present in any multiplayer server. You will be lucky to survive for long in any given round before a non "traitor" player attempts to injure or kill your character for the sake of it. It is easy for somebody to sabotage a submarine or shuttle within seconds, killing most of the crew. With the lengthy respawn times the game has, this quickly becomes tedious.
The medical system is also fairly Rigid as of now. Broken bones do not inconvenience the characters and there is no surgery system or any kind of persistent injuries. Painkillers and bandages effectively heal most wounds though you tend to just fall unconscious and die before you can undergo any sort of treatment anyway.

The base price of the game is steep for what is on offer. The amount of content and polish present at the moment does not justify a considerably higher asking price than other finished indie games such as "Subnautica" or "Stardew Valley". I waited for a sale and would advise doing so to other potential buyers.

The cosmetics you can earn through the pass are great and suit the new map well. The downside is that half the missions are borderline impossible to complete.