Swedrami: I thought the first one's combat was just fine, once you got used to it.
Took some investing of time and patience, but if you're lacking in either or both of those departments then ELEX or any Piranha Bytes game for that matter might not be for you anyway.
They got rid of the Stamina meter/requirement for the second one, if I'm not mistaken, so that's already a concession made.
The thing that irritated me is the friendly fire, I tried to help a friendly NPC fight a monster and was locked onto an enemy, then after it was dead
(I was in mid-swing when it died) it then locked onto the NPC and I ended up accidentally hitting them, when they aggro'd I quit and haven't picked it up in a while after that...
There's a reason why they made concessions with the difficulties because without a large pool of players you'll only hook in a much, much smaller pool, which will not pay the bills if you're a small-mid-sized development company, as the elite few are that, the FEW.
(Also, the fact that my fingers are not as spry as they once were, as age takes no prisoners!) :P
The reason why FROM software can get away with it as they have an entire nation of elite gamers as their
main market,
(Japan) not just the west, so they can afford to have punishing game difficulties.
EDIT:
That said, I'm still gonna pick this up as I do enjoy PB's titles as they are still doable!