It wasn’t a half bad book, I have been through something like 15 litRPG series now and I would say maybe this would be a middle of the pack experience. I think there were things that were done well but I also felt like there were several complaints on my end as well. I am writing this review after having listened to the second book as well so this is sort of my assessment of the series so far:
Flaws:
1) I found the actual gameplay to be lacking which was surprising to me. Normally I hate the IRL moments of litRPG books that have some sort of video game but it was actually the gameplay I found underwhelming. I didn’t mind the character building and character interactions but the actual mechanitcs of the game and combat itself felt very generic and boring to me.
2) The IRL situation in these books is actually a little over the top. Its post apocolyptic but the acutal situation of the world leaves me to strongly question how the main character is still alive. It seems a little flawed as it sounds like if you breath air you would just die so I found that a little questionable. I think I would have been a little more generous as to how many people were still alive or maybe scale back the global disaster on how exactly it works because my understanding of it makes it sound like nobody anywhere would ever have even a remote chance of being alive still. It sounds like you would literally need a completely closed system recycling air and water to even maybe still be alive.
Good:
1) IRL situation I found compelling and interesting. I constantly wanted to see and hear more of the real world rather than the game.
2) The NPC to character interactions was quite good. I really enjoyed the feeling of this game being sort of a social lifeline for these people in a super shitty situation.
Overall, it wasn’t half bad. The game mechanics seem completely bland to me though. If this was a real video game that we could play the only redeeming elements of it would be the NPCs and the fact that its an immersion game. I really love post apocalyptic content though and I did overall enjoy the IRL happenings of this book quite a bit more than I did the video game parts.