I enjoyed the story and it had a good ending, the MC bugged me with his actions and decisions a lot but it wasn’t too bad with the background of the mental stats having an effect on the player. I hated the “critical hit!” and “insta kill!” notifications, if I played a super deep dive vrmmo with that notification I would turn it off very quickly. The RPG elements weren’t bad, but nothing to write home about, the Proxima world seemed to have a tight, limited setup on how and what the stats effected, seemed like even if you were level 100 someone could still just stab you in the neck and you’d die, same as level 1. It works for the story in most ways but it messed with the stakes, making it seem weird when the MC would survive fight and kill stronger people, but it also allowed many things too work. Anyway I like Cooper’s work for the most part and I think the overall Proxima Galaxy setup is brilliant in that it allows him to set up all kinds of stories that COULD connect but don’t have too and gives a nicely established universe.