Wowie where to begin. This is as said a demo and you are open to features... so I can think of quite a few issues I'd like to point out and what really seems lackluster to me.
Actual Issues:
-Bullets only go the screen's length and enemies do not chase or exceed a very primitive path, if any. Combined with auto healing, this is highly exploitable and there is very little danger to the player.
-Almost no animating is present for characters or weapons, and the geometry is extremely bland and flat. The combat suffers from both of these providing less immersion, less thrill, and less depth.
-Five seven is bugged? Picked one up eventually and it held 50 shots to the clip. Holy shit man.
-Lots of recycled and limited sound effects, a single recycled bullet decal, and very apparent self-competition in the weapons pool, which was surprisingly large.
-No story and tutorial intro didn't mention the madness interactive style melee combat.
-Some weapons appear to be made exclusively for use against the player, when judging practicality vs player and vs goons. Sniper rifle, for instance.
Things I enjoyed:
-Melee deflection was a thing.
-Very large weapons pool with a decent amount of variety.
-Ammo was saved between weapons in the form of magazines, and added some planning as to what weapons to use long term based on ammo availability and ability.
-Lengthy enough for how much combat was given. With more refining, this could've really been a bigger thing.
Things I didn't enjoy:
-Lack of character depth or customization. I hate to say being a generic guy vs even something like hank or some preset character is a little painful. But maybe you can produce an original preset later along with a story.
-All the major issues listed, of course.
-Weapons went in and out of use in a manner that seemed built to screw the player out of their ammo supply, which was otherwise pretty abundant with most weapons and calibers. Additionally, this kind of took away from variety and the potential "random" feeling of the weapons pool.
Things I would recommend:
-More depth to the terrain and combat. Maybe setting attack and defense modes for melee using fire button, so it feels a little more personalized and that you're not just waving a stick of death around. Maybe elevators, ladders, obstacles, traps, doors, etc. Lots of things to add depth and character to the environment.
-Animations for when guys gets hit, when weapons reload or fire (a bit of shaking and riding back, you know, recoil?), or maybe a bit of style to how melee interacts with the posing.
-More intelligent AI. AI is a huge talking point most everywhere these days in gaming. This incredibly linear and dumb style of AI is very non competitive and un-thrilling. They either maintain one path and route or stand still altogether and just point at the player trying to fire. Maybe along with adding depth to the terrain you could find good applications for AI to do new and daring things.
-More variety to firing sounds (and I know they can be a bitch to locate) and generally multiple decals for bullet wounds and some randomization for hit sounds as well.
-Reloading sounds coupled with brass and magazine drops, perhaps?
-Single shot loaded shotguns, and some solutions to the magazine size issue. Sadly more magazines capacity = that guy's weapon's clip size = mine, and in some cases it not only doesn't make sense but alters the weapon pecking order in odd ways.
That's all for now. I find this odd this got a mention, honestly, but I guess we'll see what happens with the demo tag comes off.
