Alright, so early impressions.
I'm not far into it at all, I just got to the second tier of gear so bare in mind this is an extremely limited view of how things work so far.
As much as it pains me to day, as of this moment, the game is underwhelming. The world is pretty but it feels empty for a world that also has quests, NPC's and other things. In the biomes there are just a few different types of enemies (like, 2) and spawn rates from them are absurd. You fight actual mobs in gear check (gear score) locked places of interest and combat is not fluid, its not innovative and its pretty bland. Mind you, I'm swinging a maul and have a marble shooting cross bow so nothing too crazy and from the sounds fo it there is some tech later that is pretty cool, but there's not much here that grabs you right away. Also there's a delay between swing/hits/damage that is a little frustrating. There so far are 4 different mobs, regular mummy looking guy, a silent hill looking guy (not the head but sword arms), a caster and aguy that walks on all fours and has a red light on his head (because red lights are cool I guess).
Crafting is okay, no queue'ing which is tiresome. There's not a lot of hand holding, but if you play survival games you pick up on stuff quick. I haven't seen light sources other than fire pits, which is frustrating, I hope they are in the next tier.
I got a graphic bug a lot that made it hard to see, every time you restart it puts you back to where you spawn (your bed) which is annoying when you have to restart often.
Thus far, the element I was most excited about (steam punk) is very minimal, hopefully further in the game it really picks up. With the exceptions of some floating structures, and a couple small ruins, its like any other generic survival world.
All in all, the game was entertaining enough to keep me coming back, but if it remains this way long term, I'll be pretty disappointed. It is early Alpha and there's a lot of work to do and the devs are super responsive in both the forums and in discord. As of now, I'll still get it, but if you're looking for something ground shattering from the very beginning, you'll be disappointed.
Edit: fixed typos from typing on my phone