(also my english is far from perfect kthx)
WHY THERE IS SO MUCH HATE:
So right after release, positive reviews count dropped to ~25%. About half of those negatives is about a lack of oculus support, another half is about a lack of free (or "touchpad") locomotion method, and just a bit is about high system requirements, no lefty mode, poor optimization, bugs, and game length. I'll tell more in detail about every of those points and a few more from myself.
OCULUS SUPPORT:
Actually, not much to say here, since I own Vive. The only thing I know is that SteamVR updated ~3 hours after the release, bringing some workaround method exclusively to launch DOOM VFR on Oculus, so maybe this will solve such a "big" problem.
LOCOMOTION:
Well yeah, there is no touchpad (or "free", or "onward-style", whatever) locomotion. The thing that IS there, is dashing, which works here the very same way as touchpad - clicking on the edges of touchpad will dash you for a short distance in the direction of where you've clicked, and since there is no cooldown, you can do some sort of touchpad-style moving. And while I really don't like teleportation locomotion, the "kinda-touchpad" method I described before - it suñks. Teleportation along with slowmo system (which has its cooldown that YOU CAN UPGRADE) really do fits well in the game. After getting used to it, being an experienced desktop-DOOM-player, you start to use those new features as an advantages.
I really wouldn't mind to get a fully free locomotion with later updates, but right now I am happy with how it is.
GRAPHICS, SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS, OPTIMIZATION:
The game's minimal requirements is a top 4th-gen unlocked i5, 8GB of RAM, and a GTX 1070 - which are higher than most (if not all) of VR games with their requirements equal to SteamVR itself. My specs are: i5-4670 (slightly worse than minimal), 16GB RAM, GTX 1070. On my system, the regular desktop DOOM runs at 100+ FPS average (kinda hard to tell, but FPS is basically infinite and NEVER goes below 70 anywhere anytime in both SP and MP) with Vulkan API enabled, standard FXAA, and all maxed out graphics settings except DOF, Lens Flares, and that kind of cinematic (disturbing) crap.
I can't tell you how many FPS I have in VFR because it's VR, where measuring FPS is harder and kinda pointless, since the FPS there doesn't mean so much in terms of overall smoothness. There is popular nowadays "smart adaptive resolution" thingy which lowers the resolution of the game when FPS is going down to keep it reasonable.
You can adjust the graphics settings, there are a lot less of them than in the desktop version, but there is all the basic stuff. By default, the game set me all of them on nearly lowest possible, but with the highest anti-aliasing available - TSAA 8TX, which is crap though, since its temporal and looks just as awful as on desktop. And playing on all maxed out settings + FXAA (which my system cleary is not supposed to handle in such game) the graphics is just ABSOLUTELY STUNNING compared to all I've seen in VR, seriously guys, it looks really impressive, even real-time reflections are there (in a F-ing VR game). And with all this in mind it runs A LOT smoother than I could ever expect - the resolution downscales are there, but only in massive scenes (the closer you to the end of the game), stuttering occurs rarely when moving throughout the level and seems that it doesn't affect from the graphics settings. So I think a bit weaker system (like with GTX 1060 or GTX 970) will run the game absolutely fine.
Summing up, the DOOM VFR is (imo ofc) definitely one of the most graphics-advanced game on VR platform out there.
LEFT-HANDED MODE:
Yes, there is no way to enable some sort of lefty mode, all you can do is just switch your controllers, but your ingame hands will be inverted. But I'm not even sure that you will ever want to have it, since 70% of the game you are holding 2 guns in each hand - other 30% is a gun in one hand, and a greande in another which soon will change to a greandelauncher.
And I'm lefty btw. But I hold guns in right hand, so I don't care at all.
BUGS:
Well, the only _major_ bug I'm having is that when you are going to interact with something, your right hand with gun changes to empty hand - and its misangled (or how do I say it, so its basically rotated in the wrong direction, a bit confusing).
When I maxed out my graphics settings, the game tell that it needs to restart - quit and couldn't launch it again (getting an error) until I restarted Steam, then it launched.
"Laser-pointer controls" are a bit weird, but nothing game breaking.
Seems like the projectiles comes out ~0.5m further from your weapon muzzle, can't confirm this since point-blank shots were working most of the time.
I got stuck in a table once, fixed this by just dashing from it.
Would I call this game bugged and unplayable or immersive-breaking because of this? No.
GAME LENGTH:
So as I said, I am pretty experienced DOOM player, so I knew what could I possibly face and what exaclty do I need to do with it. Been playing on Ultra-violence (can't remember if I was able to select Nightmare or Ultra-nightmare, probably not), it is basically pre-hardest difficulty. Beat the game exaclty in 3 hours. Didn't beat it with 100% all possible secrets and stuff, but I would give it ~80-90% since half of the levels is taking place in desktop-version enviroments and I know every inch there. Died ~5 times. Less than 10% of time spent on sightseeing.
For a VR game - not too short, not too long. Will replay it at least 1 more time for sure.
GAMEPLAY:
Overall the game plays almost identical to its desktop version. Fast (despite the lack of free movement - teleportation is actually a pretty fast way to move), brutal, challenging, and all that we love DOOM for. Even verticality is there.
The only big thing that gameplay lacks is... the glorykills. Instead, there is telefragging. Bringing such a mechanics to VR where you could rip&tear your enemies by your only hands would be a HELL of an experience (got it? xddd), but at the same time this is unreasonably difficult for devs. So it's kinda understandable and not a huuuge problem.
PROS AND CONS:
+ Gameplay
+ Graphics
+ Optimization
+ Music
+ Level design
+ Weapons and enemies variety
+ Challenge
+ Immersion
- No free movement
- No "official" Oculus support
- No "official" left-handed mode
- Telefragging instead of glorykills
- Controls could be better
- Poor weapon manipulation (it's DOOM though)
- Not really body-movement-intensive (like SUPERHOT VR)
