TL;DR: A decent spiritual successor to Max Payne with a caveat, but only for a reasonable price.

I didn't finish the game to the end, and I'm glad I didn't. The thing is, I like the PS1 aesthetic and atmosphere, I love the music (no joke, it's an absolute banger that suits the genre), I'm stunned by the quality and perfomance of the voice acting, narrative, and cutscenes, the classic Max Payne-style slow-motion action with dives in all directions is also there, the sounds are good, hell, even guns do feel rather nice with the shooting impact. All the visuals are FINE.

But everything good is overshadowed by repetitive gameplay and the same tedious goals in every next corridor. Enemies approach you all at once with no tactics once you get spotted. Yeah, they do have their special moves, but most of them just walk towards you without even thinking how to get to you in the first place (say hello to their heads clipping through the walls and doors which you can shoot). You just eliminate them one by one, then move to the next area and repeat. There's just nothing interesting, new, or exciting about these fights. Some are too easy, some are overfilled with enemies and you get stuck in a tight space with no ammo in the chamber. It's so dang frustrating when you make sure you reload, but apparently something stops the animation and you die with no bullets because someone got too close. But that only happens if you actually use all the abilities the game offers you. The problem is that you don't really need anything except bullet time on its own. You just activate it, aim for the weak spots, kill them all fast and move on. No dives and no rolls needed.
Before buying I checked some reviews and I couldn't believe that it wasn't as fun as it looked on the screenshots and trailers. And well, I can't deny it is hard for me not to agree with these people and their arguments. Because the level design is pretty generic and the game itself feels like an early access v.0.534 itch.io project (which it actually is, though it's considered being finished). The same motel rooms and flat corridors over and over again, same monsters you fight against, same mechanics, and trust me that is not something that makes me want to continue playing. When the graveyard section reappeared, I seriously couldn't take it anymore and just quit. The camera's far and high enough to let you see everything your eyes shouldn't. You see all the rooms, all the floating areas you'll have to walk through before going all the way back to the elevator, and you can clip your camera through the walls. I guess it's intentional because of the lore, but honestly I don't see it that way. It's just cheap and feels like it was made straight out of ready to use assets. The only thing that was holding me back was that I got invested in the story, characters and I wanted to see the whole conclusion of it, thanks to the astonishing work of the voice actors and the director(s). Yet, I couldn't force myself to get through it any longer because of the main reason I came here, the badass gameplay itself. The game starts off promising, but it quickly becomes repetitive and boring. You end up wishing it would just end quickly so you could only remember positive parts. When it continues to drag on and you have more levels to complete, you lose motivation to finish them.

And all that would be tolerable, if not the price. I'm sorry, but I can't justify 20$ being payed for this. Even with a 50% discount it just doesn't meet my basic expectations for a game like this. You have great voice actors who did an incredible job, awesome pumping hip-hop music, well-crafted cutscenes, and an interesting story to be told. Even the hand-animated trailer and some of the game visual elements are impressive. It's all at a pretty high level, even though none of that was really necessary (just give me a good Max Payne clone). But all that just doesn't make any sense if most of the budget went on these aspects and the remaining part was abruptly spent on the gameplay and level design, making it the weakest part of the game.

The original Max Payne is 10$, while El Paso, Elsewhere is 20$. It's not bad, it just feels too primitive. This is a single-time game that will be lost in my memory in 3 weeks, when I can replay a 2001 game every 2 years for the action and feelings it gives me and still be excited. I get it if you want to support the vibe of it, but I prefer to play games that give me joy and fun.

I will consider buying it again once the price is right. I'll make sure to finish it and update a review.

VERY repetitive.
But the story was good enough for me to care to finish.
Was it worth it? Not sure...

love it