The Ninja in MIND CONTROL DELETE is the worst of the three Evil Counterpart mooks. On top of being invulnerable like the others, it can deflect bullets like you can, throw its katana at you, and recall it to hit you on the return. It easily has the greatest damage potential of the three.
Shotguns are incredibly annoying to deal with. They fire in spreads, which is great when you're using them, but utterly impossible to calculate where the bullets are going when they're fired at you. Assault rifles are nearly as bad, but fire in a tighter grouping, giving you more room to get around them.
In MIND CONTROL DELETE, if you can manage to get the Lightning Reflexes and Super Punch hacks, consider that round won. Lightning Reflexes slows any bullets near you to a crawl, and Super Punch lets you punch the bullets back. You'll feel like Superman as you punch back shotgun blasts and assault rifle rounds with no fear of damage. The Mind enemies are still a problem, however.
killheal.hack grants hearts for kills, starting with five kills and increasing from there. If you get it as your first or second hack, you can easily build up a health buffer for the rest of the round.
Goddamned Bats: The Addict in MIND CONTROL DELETE isn't as dangerous as the other two because its special ability can't hurt you. What it does do is steal your weapon when it swaps into you while discarding its own, and will interrupt you in the middle of getting the requisite kills needed to progress. It can be further problematic if it happens to spawn with (or steal from you) one of the more powerful weapons, because it's more aggressive with them and has to be avoided until it pulls another swap.
It's Short, So It Sucks!: A common complaint. The story can be completed in under 2 hours, and the Speedrun challenges have you attempt to do that in even less time. However, some argue that the story is just an Excuse Plot and the main focus is on the gameplay. MIND CONTROL DELETE lampshades the trope by playing the credits after about fifteen minutes of gameplay identical to the original game, allowing the real game to begin when the player character gets irritated with so little content and demands MORE.
It Was His Sled: "Superhot is the most innovative shooter I've played in years!" being a Forced Meme encouraged by the game to encourage players into playing it.
Paranoia Fuel: The idea that whoever is behind the titular program is constantly watching you, the player. Even after finishing the game and fulfilling their request to spread word of the game under the influence of hypnosis.
Play the Game, Skip the Story: While the gameplay is praised for its novelty the story is faulted for frequent interruptions. If you're not interested in the game's musings in a meta-narrative then you will be forced to sit through several unskippable chat-logs and cut-scenes. It's also not possible to replay any missions or try the extra game-modes until the story campaign is completed.
Scrappy Mechanic: The finale of MIND CONTROL DELETE. The System "deletes" everything and requires the player to keep the game window open and running for eight real-time hours to "recover" it. Most players were not amused. This was patched down to two-and-a-half hours and the player can tab out of the window without pausing the countdown. (The development team originally wanted the "recovery" period to be twenty-four hours long.)
Throwing objects in Superhot VR is very awkward, requiring you to essentially push an object toward what you are aiming at instead of making a proper throwing action, and it's very difficult to do consistently and accurately.
Spiritual Adaptation: A game where you dodge bullets in slow mo, fight many, completely identical enemies at once, has a meta element in that the game is an In-Universe program, and the player is basically superhuman (in this case, able to slice bullets in midair, among other things). Are you sure this wasn't based on The Matrix?
The third level in both the prototype and the expanded version of the game will have you at the end of a hallway, without a weapon. The weapon is at the other end, sitting in front of three enemies shooting at you. You have to dodge their bullets to reach it. Considered by some to be one of the most difficult levels (for the time being...).
"UNFINISHED BUSINESS" in the first game is the first level that tips over into sheer frustration. It starts simple, with you killing two men unarmed in a bar's bathroom. When you get into the bar proper, however, the bartender starts firing a shotgun. You're meant to grab either a bottle or a billiard ball and throw it to disarm him, but the shotgun's spread means there's a good chance your projectile will simply be destroyed mid-flight. And while you're trying to do this, there's a guy with a pistol in the back room making his way out. Once you take out the bartender ("TIME GENTLEMEN PLEASE"), three more guys with guns spawn in... behind you, giving a very high chance you'll be shot before you even realize where the threat is.
The level in the elevator. Three enemies in your face, each with a pistol, one already points it at you, and you're in an elevator, so there's very little room to dodge. And then when the elevator opens, you're greeted by two guys with shotguns.
The almost final level in which you are forced to Hot Switch into the core. A series of three lengthy gauntlets in which you take on large numbers (it's, appropriately, the biggest fight you have outside the Endless modes) of enemies as you attempt to complete your objective. Thankfully, the game is merciful enough to count each gauntlet as a "level", effectively giving you checkpoints so you don't have to start the entire thing over.
The third phase of the gauntlet in particular starts off with a very hairy situation as an assault rifle enemy and a pistol enemy are staring directly at you and you have to grab a gun off someone in the process of dying right next to you. But you have to be cognizant of your surroundings as there's also a shotgun enemy rounding the bend to your right, meaning you have to make some very tight target prioritization to survive the opening salvo (and there's some Luck-Based Mission at work here too since you have to hope the shotgun guy doesn't have a bead on you right away as you try to clear out the two enemies you started off facing). Fumble grabbing the gun or missing your first shot and you lower your chances of survival drastically. Something else to note is during this final level, you can't Hotswitch at all so you won't have that option available to swap places in a pinch.
Any level in Superhot VR that requires accurate throwing over medium to long distances given how finnicky and awkward the throwing controls are. Most notably the final stage of the elevator ride which that locks inside an elevator and asks you to accurately toss throwing stars at three distant enemies while they shoot you.
Tough Act to Follow: MIND CONTROL DELETE has had this reception in some quarters. While it's not viewed as bad, the diminished story elements, combined with the mixed reception to the Roguelike elements and the fact that the developer team basically tried to create their own Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty with this title, has led to less of the buzz that surrounded the original game.
by Republika, which plays during the credits, is rather catchy.