Incredible level, and incredibly difficult. It's a really huge level, I had almost 18 hours of play time on the statistics screen at the end (minus countless of reloads and retries, which are not included in this number). This level has almost everything: puzzles, acrobatics, fighting enemies, all in a huge underground cave system.

I suspect this level got harder than the builder intended, and will be too difficult for many. You need patience and a long breath when playing this. The game starts with a small separate very simple training level, which is extremely misleading, and won't prepare you for anything that's to come. Then the real level starts, but it stays nice and easy for a while. It's partitioned into multiple sub-levels for technical reasons, but it's meant to be a single big level. You will move between them all the time.

GAMEPLAY: A lot of exploration (it's literally a great maze), getting over obstacles, solving puzzles, killing lots of enemies. I really appreciated the exploration aspect, though I got stuck all the time after discovering the initially accessible passages. It often happened that I didn't know what to do next, and had a huge area to cover trying to look for new hints. This is one of the difficulties, not uncommon in many other levels, but here it felt extreme due to the size of it. I was close to giving up many times. You need to collect a lot of key-like items, until you can access the central platform in the "The Heart of the Maze". Most of the enemies are "Ahmets", and they usually attack in a pack. Not that hard to deal with, and there are enough medipacks everywhere, but overpowering near the end of the game. I actually cheated and gave myself more shotgun ammo, because I didn't think I'd be able to finish the final stretch (Note: if you run out of ammo, new ammo will actually appear). I almost gave up here as well. The final stretch is pretty mean. New enemies are spawning everywhere, new obstacles appear until you beat the enemies, and you probably lost some of your weapons. In addition to the "Ahmets", there are these big warrior things, which are hard to kill, seem to need a random amount of ammo, and have weird delayed deaths.

VISUALS: The textures are in a pretty consistent look, which could be considered solid, but boring. But the architecture makes up for it. The various areas look fairly different too (more like building in the upper areas, more like cave in the lower ones). Some minor faults here and there, but it looks very nice. One problem is with the partition into sub-levels. This is probably for technical reasons, because too large levels will become unmanageable or slow. But the level transitions are set at the oddest places. You can see closed doors, which you notice are actually open, once you step closer and transition into the level containing that door. This is also for technical reasons, but it can be confusing.

AUDIENCE: If you want to finish it: experts only, you need to be patient and unafraid. But anyone can take a look and play large parts of it, and enjoy the atmosphere. It gets exponentially harder later on.

I DISLIKED:

• The maze is so big and confusing, you spend most of your time backtracking (either fruitless, or for necessary revisits). Insane backtracking. Probably too much for most.
• The enemies were annoying, towards the end even unfair.
• You can (and have to) lose all of your guns in two places. The revolver is a reward for secrets, but you can lose it and not get it back.
• Some of the puzzles were too clever for me. It was hard to reset them and solve them from the video walktroughs.
• Some really mean jumps.
• The difficulty varies widely depending on the path you take. You might accidentally take the worst path, which is unfair.
• My least favorite area was "The Framework" with its pull doors and the 4 levers. It was OK at first, but turned into an awful chore after a while.

I LIKED:

• It's impressive and I loved exploring it. It's a maze, exactly as promised, and it's deep.
• It's fun how it unexpectedly gives you access to areas you could only see from far before, or whole new areas. This review creating expectations will probably have the reverse access, but I was impressed how deep the level went. I was astonished.
• Very non-linear. (Although that can also be a problem.)
• Many areas see use multiple times, although that could be exhausting too.
• I especially liked the use of 3D architecture, and seeing places that were reachable only much later. The main room (The Heart of the Maze) gives you a good idea of the complexity, that involves heights as well.
• Plenty of items (ammo, medipacks) throughout the level, which help to notice whether you were in an area before, a bit like breadcrumbs.
• Most of the challenges were interesting, even if I complained about some others.

In summary, really nice level, especially amazing for being the first level of the builder. But the unexpected and varying difficulty was frustrating, and will probably be frustrating to others. Worth checking out in any case.