The game has lots of character and style! Very cool visual design and music. The main problem is that it is too long. No matter how good the writting is, a story driven game with more that 20hrs gets repetitive. With some cuts, 20%-30% less, it would have much more focus and novelties.
Another thing is that unlike the last of us, prey is afraid of the calm moments, while the last of us completely embraces them. This makes a difference because both games dont have much enemy variety, but at least TLOU also has human enemies. The coolest enemy in prey, the shapeshifting mimic loses its relevance as you get more powerful. That is why prey would benefit from having human enemies.
Do you know what would be cool? If prey had more deeper interaction with the other human characters, like making you bond with a tough cougar scientist, adding sexual tension to the story and some dirty sex scenes, as an emotional pressure release for the characters, while you just hope there are no lurking mimics around. From there, the writers could even make you go from friends with benefits, to enemies trying to kill each other, where the good guy and the bad guy are not really aparent.
Imagine if naughty dog had the balls to do the same thing to TLOU2! A horny ellie with an electra complex seduces Joel against his wishes, marking her passage to adulthood. From there we would see the rise of ellie and the decline of joel, where after several turns of events, she ends to be the one that kills him or leads him to his death. TLOU meets The Last Tango in Paris! Now that would be a feminist story!
