Dead as Disco

A quick note on method, because it matters here. Dead as Disco has about 201 negative English reviews in total. The hundred I read for this review are therefore roughly half of every negative thing anyone has said about it in English — unusually complete coverage, and the reason I can say with some confidence that the criticism is narrow, consistent and fair.

What it is

You play Charlie Disco, a fallen music icon fighting through former bandmates to reclaim the spotlight. Every attack, dodge and finisher lands on the beat of the track playing, so combat resolves into something closer to choreography — you're not timing button presses against an enemy, you're playing along with a song that happens to have people in it.

When it works, and it works constantly, it's exhilarating. The art direction is deep neon and music video, the soundtrack ranges across eurodance, horror punk and post-punk, and there's custom song support — one recent reviewer describes modding in a character and fighting to their own playlist, which is exactly the right instinct for a game like this.

The combat quality isn't in dispute even among detractors. A 72-vote negative review: "The combat feels punchy and has a lot of weight. It syncs amazingly with the music, I like the different flows that are possible by mixing together moves. The art style is be[autiful]." That's the criticism.

The honest complaint

What those hundred negatives are actually about is volume. Early Access appears in 33 of them, content in 24, price in 15, short in 12. A 9-vote reviewer states it plainly: "not enough base content to justify the asking price. 4 bosses while cool is only an hour at most of content."

The median playtime among critical reviewers is 1.9 hours, which tells you the same story from another direction — they finished what was there.

There's a subtler and more interesting version too. Multiple reviewers say the free demo was so good that the paid build felt like a step sideways. "I loved the demo, but for some reasons I didn't really vibe with it this time," writes the top negative at 134 votes. Another, at 8 votes, titles their review "An Album Made of Singles." A June reviewer thinks the rhythm sync itself feels looser than the demo's did.

That's a genuinely unusual failure mode: a demo so well-tuned it became the benchmark its own game had to clear. It's also, I'd argue, a good problem — it means the studio can build.

Boss fights are the other cluster, appearing in 55 of the hundred, generally for running longer than the songs can sustain.

What happened next

This is where the review turns, and it's the reason for the score.

Brain Jar shipped hotfixes within two weeks of launch, then Update 1 — the Summer Flames Tour on 16 June with a new song, arena, enemies and content, then the Midsummer Update on 3 August as their second major drop. They announced 200,000 copies sold on 13 May and passed 500,000 by late July. The patch notes are written in a chatty, unpretentious voice that answers the question players were actually asking — "When's the next update?" — with "Right now."

The numbers followed. Negative reviews ran 73 in May, 16 in June, 9 in July and 2 in August. Of the 100 most recent English reviews, 98 are positive, with a median playtime of 9.8 hours — five times the critical median, because there's now five times as much to do.

Compare that with Assetto Corsa EVO, which I reviewed earlier today: nineteen months in Early Access, features removed rather than added, and sentiment drifting down. Same label, opposite conduct. Early Access isn't a promise or a warning by itself — what matters is what the developer does with it, and Brain Jar are doing it properly.

The verdict

Dead as Disco earns an 8.5. The central idea is executed with real craft — I'd put the moment-to-moment combat alongside Hi-Fi Rush for rhythm-action feel, and this is rawer and more combo-driven where that one is polished and cinematic.

It isn't a 9 yet, and the reason is the one its own reviewers give: at NZ$38.49 the content still lags the ambition, boss fights outstay their songs, and a superb demo set a bar the full build is still climbing toward. Those are Early Access problems in an Early Access game, being addressed at a visible pace.

There is a free demo. Play it. If the first fight makes you grin, buy the game — and if it doesn't, you've lost nothing, which is exactly how this should work.