I played a few rounds during the playtest but I’ve been keeping my eye on it for some time. I don’t know what reviews you’ve read but the extraction shooter crowd is excited because ARC raiders gets so much right and is arguably better than the king of the genre, Escape from Tarkov. Tarkov goes for a different experience so people who enjoy Tarkov might not necessarily enjoy ARC, but there are objective things that make ARC better than Tarkov. For example the PvE enemies are not bullshit. They’re hard but you don’t need to pixel peek through a doorway to kill them. The audio is far better because you can actually use audio to locate people. Less useless loot due to the ability to recycle loot. The performance is more uniform (in Tarkov streets is still somewhat unplayable for some people). The only clear negative people have had with ARC raiders is the third person view but I would say that’s hardly a deal-breaker. The rest of the game is fantastic. I dig the art style. I dig the audio. I dig the ARC and I dig core gameplay loop. I’m seriously considering finding time to invest into playing ARC raiders because that’s how much I enjoyed the playtest.

But with all this praise it’s worth remembering that at the end of the day it is an extraction shooter and extraction shooters are not for everyone. If the entire concept of risking your gear to get loot doesn’t sound appealing then not amount of praise is going to make you enjoy ARC raiders.