Which shaders and effects did you feel where not cohesive or contributing? There are some interested things going on with the cel-shader I designed, and I created an adjustable vertex wobble shader to recreate some early PlayStation hardware limitations, but those effects where intentionally subtle, and the goal certainly wasn't to create a "tech demo".

Every effect that ended up in the final game was chosen purposefully with the goal of making a stylized and cohesive experience. I'm not exceptionally skilled with environments or character modeling but the visual appearance of the game was one of the few things I thought I'd done well, I invested a lot of time in making sure everything had a uniform Texel densities, similar looking textures, lighting in key areas deliberately tweaked and colored, and that the shader effects did not vary too much between locations (with the exception of the chromatic area) . I'm interested to know which effects felt out of place for you?

I'd also like to know more about how the game has uncertain goals while also being too linear? I've received somewhat similar feedback from someone else but they struggled to elaborate. If anything, I expected to get criticized for the unbeleiviably cliché gameplay loop, exploring a map to find keycards then clearing specfic linear areas is quintessential DOOM. I intended to push the concept a little by making seemingly open areas deceptivly linear by drawing the player towards specfic locations (Like the the red room practically begging to be climbed to find the first keycard) and make linear areas deceptively non-linear (The hidden teleports in the yellow hallway). It's wholly possible that my level design just wasn't good enough to pull this off, At least one person I watched play simply got lost and couldn't find the blue door for over 40 minutes despite my deliberate attempt to encourage the player to jump up there to avoid enemies lol. 

In general, I was actually hoping to make the player feel lost, or at least uncomfortable, without actually getting lost.  I think the part I may have failed was that the discomfort was supposed to come from the environment and space, not from frustration at not knowing where to go. And the strange effects should have been sparing and spread around multiple maps, not crammed into one. Having to scope down to a single map made my design goals really difficult to pull off :/

If I had the time, I would scale down this first map and make it much more "normal", the enemies would be less strange and there would be almost no platforming, giving a much more traditional FPS experience, but then, after stepping through the elevator you are taken to a totally different level, abstract and colorful like the blueroom with platforming, nearly no enemies, and large environmental hazards. Each level after that would seek to build on that back and forth in new ways.

Was it the meatballs that where hard to tell if you killed? If so I agree completely lol I added them on the last day and didn't have time to give them a proper model with things like death animations. They're supposed to fall when they die but sometimes just keep floating for some reason. 

Everything has a unique sound for taking damage and death though, there are gib sounds when you blow off the limbs from the Footless Creatures (the dog/cat enemy), and the meatballs have a special sound for when they notice you for the first time.

The player damage sound is definatly WAY too quiet though, I agree with that. I wanted to have some sort of visual effect on the camera as you take damage but wasn't able to implement it.