This is like Wolfenstein all over again. Review scores suck. Too many reviewers mistake trends in gaming as improvements over systems that have fallen out of favor.
The health + armor system, isn't old and dated. The 10 weapons system isn't old and dated. The open map design isn't old and dated.
Doom isn't great because it reminds you of games that were great when they came out. Doom is great because it makes you fall in love with this style of gameplay all over again.
When you have people dropping by the OT every page or so asking about the story... it shows you that people expect different things from a game these days... and that's fine. Doom isn't everyone.
And if you just read the reviews you get a sense of that. Oh, they're bemoaning this or that. I've always said that the scoring system is shown to be broken whenever you have a game where the single player is fantastic, but the multiplayer is meh (or vice versa). Do you mark the game down for including an additional mode that is only okay? Or would the game be getting higher scores without that mode at all?
There'll never be a consensus on it. Hopefully DOOM sells what it deserves, and finds the audience it should (and I think it will). But what it really exposes to me is how broken scoring games is. Bethesda were right to not send out review copies. They knew they'd get flak for it, but it let the game get into the right peoples hands. These reviews might have steered me clear of the game.
And what a crime that would have been.