I'm bad at ze game and died on the death throes of the colony once and never made it there again. Fun aspect undeniable as I kept trying despite the constant failures, but I must speak of these 4 faces on your screen and what they make me feel, and just how much UI matters.
You could very well just have a clock, a bullet and HP to show what those things are, but through these faces you tell a story (or you can say I'm insane and construct it on my own but one thing doesnt deny the other) and I love the game simply from looking at the screen.
In Gold Dwarf I see War & Peace's Balaga, he's not in this journey for money or glory, he only accepts payment every so often even, he just does it for the love of the game, to get to shoot every so often.
In Blue Dwarf there's a veteran that's done this for 500 years at least, so he finds these horrors and is unphased, they might strike him, but he just gets jumpscared for a moment and chills again. An absolute tank, something could pierce through him into the driver's seat, and he'd just shrug it off and say he's been through worse, but is too senile to remember what it was. (When they're changing back in the lockers room they see he really is riddled with wounds and know he isnt lying, its really all just nothing to him at this point)
Green Dwarf is a family man that returns home at 5:00 PM. He is never late, because the wife and kids get sad if he's late, thinking the worse may have happened. (Voted most likely to die midgame and be replaced by his son)
And you're gonna tell me the fourth face is just the boss symbol, but it's much more interesting to think of it as the leader of the pack, a cosmic horror ghost that is seeking to eliminate these horrors for nefarious mysterious reasons. He can see the monster's lifeforce and is telling it to the dwarves. He doesn't exist outside their tank, so they never see him in their daily lives, but he can call them telepathically when he detects monster activity and they just assemble for another day at the job (like a cthulhu zordon).
Give them a show or a webcomic, I love it.