This game! I don't even know where to begin, I guess the horror feel. Imagine if RE4 got a true horror make over. Instead of a bright sunny village that looks semi normal, everything is rotten, dark, grainy, bloody. Everything feels disgusting. I won't say it is scary as I have had little fear so far, there has been a good jump scare or two, but the fear for your characters life is at a different level than RE4.
Where RE4 is about empowering Leon to be an unstoppable killing machine, TEW is about barely getting by. There is ammo, just enough to stay alive but not enough to shoot everything you see. All firearms feel weak at the moment, most enemies will take a few blasts before going down. The stealth elements add a whole different twist to the gameplay and to me it doesn't feel that close to RE4. Honestly it is more TLOU than RE4. Enemies creep around, you get to use bottles to distract enemies to give you time to sneak up on them for a stealth kill. There are all sorts of traps you can disarm or use them on the enemies. Instead of a non stop action sequence where you are shooting 20-30 enemies in a large area like RE4, you are sneaking around dispatching 5-10 enemies in a smart ammo conserving manner.
I have gotten to chapter 4 so far and I will say the design of the levels is pure RE4. There have been those moments where a room is specially designed to give you just enough options to make the upcoming battle with a rush of enemies an absolute blast to play.
I enjoyed the slow paced beginning and the action packed last few chapters I have played. There are loads of hidden items to find in these environments, I have enjoyed simply looking around. The upgrade system is very deep and actually impacts your play. There have been a few graphical hiccups, some clipping. I had a few moments of enemy AI getting stuck on something, nothing that serious but noticeable. The graphics are ok, character models are very last gen. The sound design is amazing, get this on a surround system.
So for me the combat in this game is clearly not as engaging as RE4, they are not going for the same kind of action. The stealth/shooter hybrid is very interesting, I am not sure it is my favorite choice of action, but the level design has been impeccable so far which is very important. I loved what I played.