I didn’t mean to insinuate that you weren’t playing well. Just that the game is very easy. As soon as you upgrade to an SMG or two, there’s no challenge. It just becomes a rather tedious slog as you said, with no buildup, no goals apart from that next upgrade. But that trudge is incidental, not intentional.
The game does feel too long, but that’s because we didn’t get around to implementing planned features that would have (hopefully) made gameplay more interesting. “The best-laid schemes of mice and men” et cetera. We slapped together what we had on the last day and tested just enough to make sure it doesn’t explode, but that’s all you get.