YMMV / ELEX

• Broken Base: The Early Game Hell is either a challenging introduction to the harsh world or pointless frustration due to the janky combat, and lack of scaling. This is largely between long time-fans of Piranha Bytes games and newcomers, though you'd find people of the former camp voicing similar complaints.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Pickpocketing. You can pickpocket anyone and the rewards can range from a couple of shards to a grenade launcher. It's easily the most reliable way to make money in the early game. Just go to the various settlements and pickpocket everyone you meet. And you don't even need to put a skill point in it because there's an easy to find necklace that grants you one point in the skill.
  • The Cleric's PSI-Amplifier, specifically the Black-hole skill. For a measly 5 energy it creates a huge nova which pulls enemies together stunning them in the process, deals just as much damage as other pure damage magics and adds an electric Dot effect which deals damage which is unmitigated by armor meaning even a skull enemy with too much armor to be directly harmed will dwindle with enough time (and energy potions).
  • The Cleric Amulet has an unique Energy-Regeneration skill that normally can't be learned, which lets you regenerate Energy over time. It can be found in a chest in Ignadon and with no monsters directly in front of it so you can equip it as soon as you become a cleric. Between the amulet and the PSI-Amplifier above, clerics are ironically better at being pure Mages than the Berserkers who are hyped In-Universe for being great mages.
  • Flamethrowers are some of the most dangerous weapons in the game, and don't require much stats to use. In addition to obviously setting enemies on fire, it knocks them over. This means that grabbing one as soon as possible makes the Early Game Hell a complete cakewalk.
  • The Redeemr and The Mortal Beam, unique Plasma and Laser rifles with increased ammo capacity, higher damage output than even fully upgraded variations of the base equipment, and sockets for gems. Combine with the Psi power "One With The Weapon", and you have some of highest damage output in the game. The latter has the bonus that its ammo is very, very common among the Albs you'll be fighting for most of the late game, easily earning back more ammo than you expend on them.
• Moral Event Horizon: In the eyes of many players Duras lost all sympathetic qualities as a companion after it turns out that he is the very murderer he was sent to bring to justice, that he did it all for selfish needs and that he then plans to frame somebody else to cover his sorry ass. It varies between translations of the game however; in the German version he essentially admits to committing cold-blooded murder, while in the English version he insists he was attacked first and acted in self-defense.
  • Logan. The other two faction leaders are fine holding an uneasy cold war over territory and resources. Logan, on the other hand, captures and forces a scientist under pain of death to restore a Fantastic Nuke and, instead of using it as a deterent, plans to use it to vaporize the Hort as soon as it's done.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: While meant to be Grey-and-Grey Morality all around, the Clerics stand apart from the Berserkers and Outlaws by generally lacking the constant infighting and Disproportionate Retribution that plague the other factions, with only one quest for advancing in their ranks putting you to the task of killing ultimately innocent people (which you can still talk your way out of with little consequence). A point is made about their tendency to use psychic brainwashing (which the player can employ themself) to turn ordinary people into compliant workers, seeing how the Berserkers have anyone who breaks their laws exiled to a mutant-infested hell valley or executed on the spot and enforce Medieval Stasis and can't be talked out of any execution quests, and the Outlaws are constantly backstabbing each other and have no qualms nuking an entire city, and not even the one of everyone's mutual enemy, the Albs, they still end up looking better than their competition.
• Win Back the Crowd: While not reaching the same reception as Gothic, Gothic II or the first Risen, ELEX was still considered somewhat of a return to form for those disappointed with the company due to Risen 2: Dark Waters and Risen 3: Titan Lords.