CriminalZ

OHHHH BOI! Spend around 2 hours 30 Min trying to grind this game.
I've got some words to say.

First off, this isn't my type of game, but I certainly see how this could end up very fun. I've mostly done the dealing route and made money by making people touch grass. So far that seems the most sensible way to make money.

The Backrooms explorer also seems efficient, but the backrooms don't seem to regenerate any Loot. So I've only been using those 3 random Cash Registers to get a fine start each run.

The hacker and Pickpocket seem like less fun versions of the others. Pickpocketing is essemntially the same as sellinggrass just without having to grow any. And Hacking just seems like sometimes getting loot from cameras, so simmilar to bulgaring but without venturing into the broken architecture of the scene.

I've honestly had some serious fun with the other gangsters. They seriously jumpscared me at first:

This is what true terror looks like.

Nowhere is safe.

I also got catched by the police quite a few times. I only managed to get out once. As a Platforming-Gourmet I am sadly not satisfied. It is really hard to figure out where to go, and the jumps are pretty rough, especially when you forget that you can run because of how slow the recharge is.
The bars don't look at all like something you can stand on.
And it feels like there's 5 possible starting points to parkour but only 2 are sensible options.
What's more is that you made a kind of getting over it thing. But restarting takes around 20 seconds if you know where to run, and the character controller feels more frustrating than what I'd put into such a game. It slides off of platforms waaay too easily.
But I think the style of excape is perfect, especially when you wanna put it into multiplayer. Then you may have someone who gets stuck on it for way too long and everyone just laughs at them. Though if you make the outside a little more dangrous it could lead to the hilarious situation of everyone outside loosing while the one in prison survives while failing at parkour.
There should also be multiple levels of difficulty I think.

So now to the stuff where I can give more feedback. Can sadly not say too much positive things because it isn't my type of game. Keep that in mind to so you don't just change fundamental things that is essential for the type of person who likes this game.

Firstly so far this barely feels like doing progress. I said I've TRIED to grind the game, because seriously I've TRIED. But I barely made any numerical progress other than starting with a backpack and slightly faster breaking. And I've played a whopping 2:30 hours.
I've gotten to around level 13. There hasn't been any real increase in my profits after I figured out how to play. And looking at the remaining upgrqades there's not much improvement coming in the next few levels.
Though I dunno if that might be fitting for multiplayer, as there you would have longer frequent sessions with a group of peeps. But atleast in this alpha to me it feels more like the leveling system doesn't manage to fulfill its purpose. Maybe you could make it more fast paced for the current alpha version so that it is easier to get into the gameplay loop.

Now to my biggest complaint:
This game feels a lot like it is overcomplicating things
I think that might be a very heavy side effect of Unreal. It seems like every system is trying to be this ultra realistic thing which would be developed by a subteam of 20 people in a 300 people company. But because of course you are understandably not a massive development studio and things end up somewhat broken.
And that leads to player confusion. My best example would be the other people in the game: HOW DO THEY SPAWN. WHERE DO THEY WALK. AND HOW DO I FIND THEM.
I have absolutely no clue when I can expect to see a person which isn't a still-standing grass-toucher.

I would approach a proof of concept in an entirely different manner.
I cannot understand why this version has Models and Animations.
The behaviours of Police and Citizen could be extremely simple and fullfill their purpose perfectly, they don't need to be complex enough that it is possible they port through objects.
I actually really like the T-Posing gangsters in this regard. I don't know exactly what triggers them. But when they notice me and want to kill me I understand what they do and what my options are.

I think another issue is just how you don't know how to visualize things. You said you'd rather pay for a model than try make one yourself. But you seem to have no knowledge on how to properly use models. And then you start using professional models and it ends up looking extremely rough and obscuring the gameplay systems.
Instead of focusing on these realistic graphics you should block out things far more heavily I think. If you've got differently colored cubes it is far easier to make specific game-elements stand out.

Of course those issues are fine while learning. It's completely normal to have a stage where a game looks like this, not judging you. I've had my own variants of that.
Look at dis difference (just ignore that the Dnmaku-Pattern of the upper one looks more interesting in this still image, the lower one is far more noticeable in motion):

What I'm trying to say is, maybe you should try learning a few basic visualization skills. I honestly think the facade of the buildings looks really well, even if the lighting doesn't make it look doomy enough.
I think the biggest improvement you can do is on your use of AI. Especially how you just cut out the logo and let it flash alongside the music on game start. While that is a cool idea in its entirety. Seeing the quality of that cutout is somewhat sad.

I made this in roughly 20 minutes with Unreal Engine while only every having touched the engine twice before.
You can make a logo in a similar manner and place it in your actual game world easily. Then you don't have that weird AI image at the top of your page.
(also there's some legal copyright consequences of using AI. Dunno exactly what they are, but Itch also wants you to tag all projects using AI because of this)

And while talking about the page, let me comment on your copy text a bit.
It's not bad, but it takes on atleast twice as long as it should.
It took me nearly 3 minutes to read (slow reader). And that's not really optimal for copy text. It should best be as short as possible while getting most things across.
I don't understand the "Why play CrminalZ" section at all. It feels insanely redundant as marketing text and doesn't feel like a proper feature list with how it lists things in such a roundabout way.
I think the roadmap is really neat, but should be at the end of the page. This is itchio so you can put yourself a bit more into the focus directly after a short bit of copy text.
Though I also think the section written in first person is also a bit roundabout and long. But I don't think I have much reason to criticize this in this needlessly long comment.
I am not a particularly great writer myself, probably worse than you. Is just something that can also always be improved.




BUT OHHHH GOODNESS I AM DONE NOW WITH THIS COMMENT
SPEND WAAAY TOO LONG ON THIS
I think I could say more, but I just don't have the energy and time any more to write anything else, sry. When you have anything specific where you want feedback I might be able to write more, so just ask if anything comes to mind.

I'll mostly remember this as a fun experience, even if it isn't my type of game.
And of course congrats on releasing this version. It is always a great achievement to get a version of something finished.
And have fun with future development and learning.