Just dropping in to share some early impressions. I just got to the land of Elves, so that'll give you a sense of how far I am. Not far.
I had a few misgivings early on, but those have passed.
At first I thought I wouldn't like Kratos, because he's such a hypermasculine blockhead, but he's growing on me. I started to like him when Atreus began goofing on him. That told me that the game wasn't going to take Kratos as seriously as he takes himself, which was good news. Sense of humor helps a lot.
I thought at first that the game was going to be all toughness and slaughter. But as Atreus talked more, I could tell the game had heart. It became really clear when we met the witch. That was a great scene. There have been a couple times when I've teared up a little, which means I'm connecting with the characters/story, so that's a good sign.
Combat was an issue for me at first, too. It was more challenging than I expected. It's taken me a while to get a feel for it. I'm still not very good, but at least I'm not dying anymore, and the game isn't continually reminding me that I can select a different difficulty level (ha). I'm normally a distance fighter, so it's a learning curve with the melee. I made some dumb gear selections in the beginning and didn't understand how to use Atreus. But things are getting better.
The last issue was that the graphics seemed nice but I wasn't thinking they were all that impressive. Then I discovered that, in routing my PS4 through my stereo a couple weeks ago, I had somehow castrated it of 4K/HDR, and it was outputing in 1080p. Doh. So tonight I rewired it, and, guess what, it looks a whole lot better.
So anyhow, I'm enjoying it a lot. Great game so far.