Apart from the 3/4 to the left 3rd person perspective for cinematic effect (which I hope they'll fix), the gameplay looks nice. It isn't trying to be a shitty DMC clone anymore, but it still kinda maintains some of its hack n slash elements. feels more like a faster paced souls combat with the lateral shield movements and the dodging. It also makes sense for Kratos to lose the springiness in his movement since he doesnt have the gods to back him up anymore and he's already old as fuck.
So why is there somehow a negative response to this completely revamped and refreshing combat system?
Because we haven't seen bloody enough to say it looks nice
It's a massive departure from what it was, and what is there now seems like it's following a trend of "cinematic", which generally means shallower gameplay. The combat system we did see seemed basic at best, looked like you could just press attack and win with no real challenge, but at the same time it's not like we've seen a lot of it, so it'd be daft to make final opinions now.
I'm not fond of what I did see, the camera being so fixated impacts manoeuvrability too