It's the second most innovative shooter I've played in years

This review is going to be very critical of the game, but not in the sense that the game is bad, in fact, SUPERHOT MCD is a good game completely tarnished by its core game design, structure and a few other things. In short, it's good value for its price, but a step in a completely wrong direction for the franchise.

The original SUPERHOT came out four years ago, and despite having a strong gameplay core, it was kinda lackluster content-wise - 2-hour-campaign which is way too short to fully expand on the game's mechanics, three guns, two melee weapons and no extra enemy types. The unlockable Challenges and Endless Mode provided a few more hours of gameplay, but still didn't expand on the mechanics much. Overall, the original game felt more like proof of concept than anything, a little game that made you go "huh, neat" for a single evening.

So, four years later, Mind Control Delete releases, a sort of sequel/expansion to the original game. The first noticeable thing about MCD is that it polished the core gameplay to its absolute finest: MCD overall feels way better than its predecessor. Content has also been expanded considerably, with new enemy types, a few weapons and player skills. There's now a lot of different gameplay elements, so the only thing left to do is build some creative combat puzzles and cool set pieces around them, right?

Wrong, because for whatever reason, SUPERHOT MCD is based upon Endless Mode from the original game. You get spawned into an arena with weapons randomly thrown around, and enemies come at you from a few doors located throughout the level (also randomly). Kill a bunch of them and you can move onto the next arena. Beat a bunch of arenas without losing all hearts (yes, you're no longer a One-Hit Point Wonder!) and you have completed a "node". Each node is a series of arenas with distinct rules (like which enemies can spawn there or which obstacles can appear), but there's only 32 arenas in the game, and with more than 100 levels you're going to see repeats again and again and again.

And here's the major problem with the game: Endless Mode from the original just wasn't a satisfying enough gameplay loop to build a whole game around it. There's no strats, no thinking, no interesting setpieces. Every level feels the same, because it is always the same: Enemies spawn with the same rate, acting the same way, with you doing the same stuff to defeat them. Without a level designer cleverly placing and fine-tuning these elements to work together, the core gameplay becomes repetitive.

MCD isn't balanced very well. Yes, nodes possess some rules which make them easier or harder, and yet the success of your run still feels way too dependent on your luck. In the same node, I had a run where I simply couldn't sustain all the special enemies the game spammed on me, while on retrying almost none of them spawned. Sometimes you spawn near guns which let you easily clear the level, sometimes you spawn with almost nothing right next to two guys already firing at you.

Skills are a cool idea on paper, but their realization in the game is questionable. You start each node with no skills, and each few levels you get to choose from two randomly selected skills. Some of them are kinda useless (goomba stomp from the original game is now a skill, why?), some can hurt you (like throwables that explode on hit, again, why) but some can help you easily wipe the stage in a few moments (like insta reloading on kill - combined with extra ammo it makes the game trivial). That means that most of the time there's no hard decision-making involved: Usually it's a choice between a godlike and a useless skill. There's no character "building" involved as the store page implies, because your skills are reset each node, which means every 5 minutes. Another gripe with the skills is that if you lose your health, sometimes (but not always, cause everything in that game has to be random for whatever reason) you get an option to heal yourself instead of adding a skill. That basically means punishing the player for doing bad, which is a questionable design choice, as it leads to bad players getting less skills and being weaker as a result, while good players get even better with more skills.

While new weapons and new enemies are an excellent addition to the gameplay loop of SUPERHOT, MCD also introduces bosses, which are basically invincible enemies with special abilities. They are a terrible addition all around, there's no indication that they are unkillable (they're red just like the rest of the enemies), they are sometimes difficult to distinguish from other enemies, they arrive at completely random times, either being completely useless, or easily wiping you. They're a novel idea, but the realization makes them more of an annoyance.

A few other things worth mentioning:
-Some nodes also get a vision screw for some reason, with you not being able to see level geometry unless you come close. It looks cool, but is completely terrible for gameplay, and I can't believe it got past testing. It's simply an awful idea.
-One of the most annoying ways to die in the original was getting hit from the back. MCD actually addressed this, letting you survive the first melee hit from behind and notifying you about it. Gun-wielding enemies now also telegraph that they're about to shoot with a click sound. Unfortunately, due to the nature of arenas, you still are likely to die from a rear hit quite a few times.
-The soundtrack by Zardonic is a great addition, but I think it got a bit underused. Only a single arena and a single node possess music tracks, with the rest of levels being silent (even ambience from the original has gone somewhere). "Scouring The System", the level select theme, is just excellent, though, and is probably my favorite thing about the whole game.

The last thing I wish to criticize is the story. [story spoilers ahead] I know a lot of people didn't like the story of the original, especially with all the cutscenes that obstructed the gameplay, and it feels like for MCD the devs got that criticism to heart, because there's almost no story whatsoever. There's no mysterious system with mysterious goals. Instead, the system is now an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ who tells you that there's no more content, story or reason (in the game that has been in development for a few years). You, the player, are put into a position of guilt for wanting to play more of the game, as the game constantly reminds you that you are simply an addict and there's no reason to play. The system isn't some unknown and powerful entity it was in the original game, it is an avatar of the pretentious developer who doesn't know how to write a proper story, yet acts smug about it being so meta. It's so lame, cheesy and overdone that it makes me wish they scrapped the whole thing altogether and made us work for the evil Polish guy in a suit from the 2013 prototype, at least that would have been a proper story as opposed to this meta garbage. The ending sucks. It punishes you for completing the game, and the meta stuff goes full ♥♥♥♥♥♥. I have no idea why MCD's story went that way, because the original, while not being the best or the most original plot ever, had plenty of interesting threads which could lead to a proper sequel.

SUPERHOT MCD, as I mentioned, takes SUPERHOT's mechanics into a completely wrong direction. SUPERHOT works best as a combat puzzle, with each level carefully crafted to create a unique setpiece and letting you approach it with its creative mechanic. Instead, MCD sets out to be a repetitive arena shooter, in which the core gameplay, no matter how solid, begins to show its cracks pretty quick. I really hope that eventually we get a proper SUPERHOT game - the one with lots of content and a really long campaign full of creative levels that utilize that content. MCD is just not it.

If you liked the original SUPERHOT, this is basically that but with 3 playable characters, rougelike style runs, upgrade shops (Ultra Hotswitch is the best), and new enemy types. IMO it's arguably better than the original.

(Although I should note that like the original, it doesn't have a FOV slider, which might be a problem if low FOV gives you motion sickness. The devs should've really added that before it went out of early access.)

If you owned the original, you got this for free.

There is so much more to this game than the original, there are hacks, throwing knives (which are my favourite) and more levels.

This is a must buy if you liked the original.

man i hate red people

Superhot remains the most innovative shooter i've played in years. And this continuation provides us with MORE shooting, MORE action, MORE things to throw, MORE enemies.

I would say in certain aspects the previous game was done better, as i personally like things more simplified and minimalistic. MCD brings more to the table, which is what most people would want i guess.
The navigation between the level selection menu is a bit headhurting, this particular thing probably is my biggest objection against the game.

I love throwables! In case you haven't played Superhot before, it's a game where you can throw fish, vases, vinyls, mugs, even TVs at your enemies. This expansion, if i may call it that, brings some more throwables which are very fun and funny to throw.
Compared to the previous game this one requires some more strategy, and it's a bit harder, you will have to plan and build your own gameflow, but don't worry, it's Superhot we're talking about, so the possibilities are endless, you only need some logic and basic patience.

This is more of an expansion to the previous game, i don't really consider it a sequel. It's pretty much the same recipe at the core, but it has more substance added to it if that makes sense.

If you liked the first one, you will like this one.

If you never played Superhot before, i'd suggest you to do that before playing this one only because you'll familiarize with the workings of the game, and also because the previous one is easier overall.

PS: Katana mode is best

Cool thing about all these SUPERHOT games is that you don't even understand 1% of the story, therefore there's nothing to complain about.

I love this game, its more Superhot, what's not to love? Unfortunately it has one major flaw and honestly if you're ok with spoilers i would suggest you read further before you buy. Upon completing the games story you end up "deleting" Superhot, if you follow the line however you find a way to reinstall it which sounds great, except to reinstall the game you have to leave the game open for EIGHT HOURS and there is NO way around it, what were you thinking devs? nobody likes this part of the game, were you worried people would somehow finish before two hours and refund the game or something? this is absolutely ridiculous for you to of put in the game. I want to recommend this game, but until they do something about that flaw I just cant.

Part of what made the original Superhot so great was that each level was like a fresh, new puzzle. This game consists of probably 7-8 different levels that you replay over and over while you unlock new "hacks" to make yourself stronger but they're offered to you at random for each level, meaning you go through unlocking these new abilities but don't actually have access to these abilities. The game feels incredibly repetitive right out of the gate. You also have to complete 5 or 6 mini stages to complete a level and you get a couple health points to do it. If you get to the last mini stage and die, you have to start over and lose the hacks you unlocked within those mini stages.

The original Superhot was incredible, Superhot VR was even better, this game just feels like a chore. I'd much rather go back and replay the original Superhot than play through this game.

Being self aware about being repetitive doesn't make it okay to be repetitive.