Well I persevered despite the fact I couldn't fucking strafe. I was barely able to key in 451.
Some thoughts…
* Melee combat is pretty crap, at least with the lead pipe. Doesn't feel intuitive at all, with SShock's original system it felt alright. I'd personally increase the speed of the pipe by 50% and decrease the damage accordingly. If this kind of scheme holds up the laser rapier will be completely fucking useless, unless they force the invisomutants to only be affected by that one weapon. In which case it'll be a must have for Level 3 but that'll be it.
* Level design…it's alright. It's similar to the original game, from what they included although they took some liberties with it. The trauma center now feels a bit more "medical" but yet it still didn't make a lot of sense. I think they could touch it up some more and redistribute the clutter a bit better. Little atmospheric touches like Mira's head in the vent are missing, although I really couldn't say if that's due to the alpha state or lack of familiarity with the level architecture.
* It's a bit too shiny, excessively reflective. It gives off sort of a cheap ambiance that way. Darker areas were a bit better, but then you can't fucking see anything when its dark, everything looks better there.
* RNG seems to be a bit generous to the player. First servbot I bashed in gave me two batteries! Never would have happened in the original release. If that keeps up on release you'll be able to shoot the Sparq or Ion all day, fuck the Skorpion.
* 'Becca's VA is alright, but I don't see why they needed to redo her lines as she's no better than the original actress (who probably wasn't top tier anyway given what that side of the industry was like at the time). Legal reasons perhaps? Also her face looked fairly low res, I really couldn't give her any distinguishing facial characteristics. Again this looks cheap.
* Demo was too small. I wanted to see the main concourse of Medical, the cyberspace terminal off the elevator, HERE, and the rest of the familiar landmarks. They should do what they did back in the day and release a demo with the whole of Level 1, but even a view of it's current incomplete state would have been alright. Instead it's just the starting area and the underside leading to the SHODAN log where she talks about the mutagen.
* Sparq beam feels overpowered, unless even the cyber drones are a huge step up in lethality. Once I got that I was under no threat from any of the other critters on the map. The new audio for it really didn't bother me so much as the fact that it seems more useful than a pistol now, at least to me, potentially.
* Audio wasn't too remarkable, which is a shame as that is the one area where LGS games always excelled. It's passable though really that will not be good enough for release.
I can't comment on the controls because mine didn't work. My best guess though was that it's basically going to be similar to SShock 2. So if you want to play SShock 1 with the UI and controls of the sequel then you won't have too much of a problem on that end, but if you want the fine aiming and full contortion abilities of the first game you will not be happy with it at all.