It's growing on me, slowly. I didn't like the original Shadow Warrior all that much - the humor was more racist than funny, and the gameplay was more frustrating than fun. I thought it was the worst of the build engine games(at least from what I've played, I'm sure there was some more obscure title I missed) but it wasn't good.

This is growing on me as it goes on, the weapons just get better and better.

There is something in between a CoDish linearity and an open world like Far Cry 3. You can have witty level design with lots of nooks and crannies and verticallity adn still make a linear game. Just look at Duke Nukem 3D! The urban areas as well as the canyons had heaps of verticallity which made the level design challenging and varied. Same thing with Jedi Knight. Not quite an old school shooter anymore, but the some of the best level design to date.

Shadow Warrior has fun combat and I love the many references to games and films, but it definitely is very dull when it comes to level design and enemy variety. Hard Reset (which was also made by Flying Wild Hog) suffered from exactly the same issues. Serious Sam 3 too had very boring and basically 2.5D level design.

your mom is exaggerated

This actually isn't true. Sure, there is linearity to the levels because you have to do one area before the other, but these are large areas locked off from other large areas. In Duke Nukem 3D there were different rooms you could explore and secretes to find without even finding the first key on the first level. There were also multiple ways to get to that first key.

The difference is in the exploration of these areas, not so much the actions you're taking to get from A to B.

And this game has that same secret hunting. A lot of the rooms or areas are also equally large. Just not quite as large on average.

Obviously Call of Duty is ten times more linear and railroaded, but the idea of the original Shadow Warrior being a lot more nonlinear and large than the new Shadow Warrior is nostalgia goggles, IMO. I just played the original recently.

Secrete hunting isn't necessarily what I mean with regards to level design, as my post revolves around your idea that the design is just "key -> door -> next area" in terms of linearity. This isn't true, for the reasons I stated above.

Saying "While some of the rooms might be a little larger I doubt it's overall very different." is like saying Super Mario 3D Land levels aren't much different than levels from Super Mario 64. It's just not the same. If I want a Coke, give me a Coke. Don't give me Pepsi with a Coke label slapped on it and tell me it's "basically the same" because it's not. This game is Painkiller with a Shadow Warrior label slapped on it.

That's not to say I think the new Shadow Warrior is bad. Painkiller-style games are a whole lot of fun to me. The problem is that Painkiller-style games haven't stopped coming out, while games like Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Blood and the original Shadow Warrior have. Having a game come out named "Shadow Warrior" is semi-misleading and makes fans wish the new game was modeled after the original game rather than another game entirely.

Lastly, I didn't play Shadow Warrior until recently. It's definitely not nostalgia goggles for me. I like the new game, but I can 100% see where people are coming from here.

Hard Reset and Painkiller linear? Yeah. This game? No fucking way.

Well I disagree. This game has a lot larger and more open maps than the more linear games you reference.

This... how hard can it be?

Except it's not like that. At all. We must be playing different games.

Looks like people had some unrealistic expectations for this one, just the arguments some people are giving like the one about the soundtrack for the previous being better just made me laugh. Although I do get why some of you might be disappointed it ain't like the previous games in a sense of exploration, that I get it.

I beated this game and quite frankly I loved it, I also admit there's a few flaws, this is far from a perfect game, but this is as close as you're going to get to more classic style FPS without feeling like they've forced the old game design right down your throat. FWH just about made all the nods to the original even a few I didn't expect, this is more than a worthy prequel/remake/reboot/reimagining, way better than the likes of other classic franchises that went the modern FPS way like Medal of Honor and Syndicate that were either forgettable or just flat out bad. They really took the concept of your average silly 90's shooter mixed it with some modern game design ideas, made a surprisingly good story considering the source material which they kept true to it and an overall great production (Also demon bunnies).

Compare this game to other shooters and you'll feel right away this one at least requires skill and makes for a much more satisfying experience. It's not as balls to the wall difficult like Hard Reset or Serious Sam 3 on normal difficulty but it's still a good challenge and a well made game.
Want to talk about meh, just go for any military shooter, those try to either convince you that it's a realistic war scenario (In which you'll do ludicrous stunts and survive impossible falls, explosions and the odds) and/or it'll be a game that might as well be an on-rails shooter like House of the Dead because as soon you step out of the preset path you're supposed to follow you immediately get shot or insta-killed, it's ridiculous, not to mention for a story that tries to take itself completely serious most of it are really clichéd and rather dumb in a bad way.

Talk about meh game, go home, play COD. This one? No way. That's closest 3D modern recreation of 2.5D Build game. People often have fake memories about old classics through nostalgia googles. Everything SW has it's here and even more, don't fix what is not broken and this reboot is faithful to it's original formula. Nothing more satisfying to be expected from this. Stay cool, play both games as frequent as possible, see similarities, fell into deep well of real nostalgia driven experiences today. Wait for it, embrace. Nothing can spoil that moment. ;-)

There are numerous hints to the fact that this is really a prequel and not a sequel or remake. Younger Wang, different sword throughout which he clearly leaves behind if you watch the credits long enough, a certain villain (and two others actually) you don't finish off, etc.

I know the official statement is that this is a reimagining of the original, but perhaps that's intentionally misinformative. Perhaps that's why one key clue is hidden in the credits. Why would they do this? Perhaps "remake" gets better publicity than "prequel." Perhaps they wanted to surprise fans and only hint at this fact for the sake of it.

It really seems a prequel, but I think they officially said it is reimagine the original to not feel forced to connect anything.