I played Metro Exodus before this one, so going into this one I thought there'd be a lot of characters from Exodus but there weren't as many as I thought. That didn't make the story worse for me, but I thought playing Metro 2033 would make me understand the characters from Exodus more. I actually think there were a lot of good story moments in this, my favorites being Library and Tower. I liked Library and Tower because I felt like there was a lot more variety in the locations compared to the previous chapters. Library having enemies you shouldn't attack made it feel so unique compared to the normal combat encounters and Tower being so high up over the city was such a big change in setting which made it a really good final level imo.
I played the game on Ranger, the biggest difference in it is how quickly you and enemies die, combat feels very quick in Ranger because of that. I don't think the combat encounters in Metro 2033 are the best thing ever, too many of them are kind of just killing waves of enemies until the game allows you to progress, but I think they could've been worse, there's no enemies I found to be annoying to fight. The things I wish were different are the things like pipe bombs and knives, there's a small delay after you press the button that makes it feel sluggish to use them, add the weird throwing arc and it just made me not want to use them. Another thing was the tinnitus sounds, which thankfully can be turned off in Exodus, were very uncomfortable for me and made some moments of the game worse. Aside from that, I think the combat is actually fun because of the sound design, things like exlosives and all of the guns sound really good and add a lot of impact to the the combat. There's some small details that I really appreciate like blood and dirt covering the gas mask if you shoot an enemy close to you or are near an explosive when it goes off, both can then be wiped off the mask if you press G. It technically doesn't add much to the gameplay, but makes the game feel more impactful.
It was obivous they didn't have a big budget for this game, but I think they did a really good job :3