Cold War PC Beta Impressions

I need to play more to see the rest of the maps and mess around with any unlocks there are, but first impression after 5 matches, not good.
The first thing i noticed was extreme stutter and frame pacing issues, a config edit resolves this for the most part but i couldn't completely get rid of stutter, Treyarch are aware of this issue so that's fine.
On the gameplay side of things it just feels really... "cheap", as in not fully polished which i know it's a beta but it's in every aspect of the game, the movement feels "off", mantling is very spongey, shooting guns feels odd, animation is jarring, map lighting feels flat, health bars return from Black Ops 4 for some reason, it all combines to give an unfinished feeling which i know, it is unfinished, but the game is out in a month and i don't expect these things to change much if at all, it feels like a mod of an older cod game.
After playing Modern Warfare all year and putting up with its awful map design i was looking forward to something different, but it feels like largely the same philosophy was used, regardless of where you are there always seems to be a window or a path you can use to cross the map, leading to constant flanks and no flow to the map, something i last felt in WW2, Treyarch always used to have my favourite multiplayer but BO4 totally destroyed the formula, i was hoping to get the COD feeling back with this one but so far i'm not.
Only other thing to mention is a personal gripe of mine, at some point i can't remember when Treyarch started using a really cheap method of shadow filtering, it was definitely in BO4 and it's returned once again in Cold War (that similarity leads me to think the engine hasn't changed much), without using AA to slather a layer of blur over everything (and introduce input lag) shadows appear in stripes and it's extremely distracting, due to the jagged nature of the shadows it emphasises aliasing, every edge shimmers like crazy in motion and the only fix is a heavy dose of anti aliasing, i had this problem in The Crew 2, RE2:Remake and Control also but those games aren't fast paced first person shooters.
Only other thing to mention is one of my matches disconnected, i've seen other people mention this and other connection problems but it's a beta so whatever.

So yeah, not stoked on it, while i am looking to break away from MW it's going to take a lot to do that, despite the issues i have with MW it feels amazing to play and Cold War just isn't doing enough right to be a contender, at least it has a campaign, but i still haven't played Infinite Warfare's which is apparently great.

I don't usually do long form impressions or previews, sorry it's kinda wordy.
What are all your impressions so far? Are you still playing Modern Warfare? Are you enjoying Cold War?

It was pretty lame from what I played. Kill confirmed felt like regular old COD, the vip mode made me want to play Rainbow 6 instead, and dirty bomb made me want to play Battlefield instead. Dirty Bomb was really bad, being able to parachute into the map the entire time is a terrible idea and the helicopter was OP as hell. The COD devs still aren't good at large scale game modes. I played it on Xbox. I'd maybe rent the game for the campaign, but that's about it. The multiplayer wasn't good to me.

I played a bit on the Xbox and mostly liked it. I'm not that into the nuances of the newer Call of Duty games, but at a quick glance this feels and looks quite close to Modern Warfare. The stories of these games have felt increasingly gross as of late, but I might pick this up on sale somewhere for the multiplayer.

A few more impressions after playing for a bit longer.
I really don't like any of these maps, they have no distinct lanes or paths and have random sight lines all over the place, i'm still suffering from the awful spawns found in MW, players are able to get too close to enemy spawns before map rotations happen, also noticing the skill based matchmaking even at this early stage, most of the matches i played were completely one sided affairs which happens all the time in MW, i can't tell if it's a connection issue or if the hitboxes are gigantic but it felt like even if i was missing i was killing people, rather than aiming i relied on spraying in general directions and it was working pretty well, the grenade throw animation is disturbingly long and explosions seem weirdly effective, like the entire grenade radius is a guaranteed kill, the throwing arc is strangely low and flat, grenade "trails" are dark grey and hard to see, weapon attachments are a bizarre collection of stats, why would you want a foregrip that reduces vertical recoil and makes horizontal recoil worse? Some weapon ads animations are juttery and unfinished, the "best play of the game" plays for way too long forcing you to watch a replay for up to 20 seconds before you're allowed to search for a new match, in modes with a half time you have to wait for the replay to start, watch it for 20 seconds, wait for the sides to swap then play the second half and watch another 20 second replay... it's too much, and i was hoping the new scorestreak design would reduce powerful killstreaks but i just played a match where everyone had attack helicopters and artillery, so that needs tweaking.
I've seen enough now i think, i still have the stuttering and had to stop.