Let's assume I'm the most patient player ever, like I don't mind that my opponent takes forever with their turn, and I take that time to consider all my options and I'm fine with that. What is it exactly that's so great about this for the people who love it? I played the demo and I'm curious how the game plays out after that: more verticality, more crazy weapons, more cerebral maps or longer faster maps, how cringe worthy is the writing, does it ever become its own cohesive thing?
You start to get a lot of interesting options and characters with unique abilities, as well as multiple sub-weapons you can mix-and-match.
Right now for example I have a dude who can throw grenades and lay mines, a super-quick scout who can stun enemies with a boxing gloe and target weakpoints with his crossbow, a lion who can take tons of hits, jump across gaps, and shoot out shurikens to hit multiple foes, and a dude who launches robotic, explosive penguins that charge forward and can be used to scout out the path as well.
Plus the enemies become more complex with different behaviors, you have to take in what's above you as a factor (for example in a recent map I played, there was a giant blimp which I thought at first was just decoration---turns out it could shield you from one enemy attack from above before it popped), and the maps usually have nooks and crannies to explore, although you have to decide if you're willing to risk it to wait for enemies to catch up to you, or if you just wanna get to the goal ASAP.
It gets pretty intense, although I've yet to get a Game Over. You can use multiple mid-point save and heal spots, and they make things easy---you find enough money that you're good to use them more often that not, and while money unlocks new weapons, you can replay the easier maps, or earn it in multiplayer, so you shouldn't be too stingy about using them if you need to.
Writing's really nothing special. Each characters has a decent variety of quotes depending on situations, and the cinematic cutscenes are short and sweet, right now I'm just at the "Character Introductions" chapters so I don't know if things pick up after introductions are out of the way.