You assume that yet have you played it?
I personally don't find combat "clunky" at all, nor laggy or unresponsive (that is ludicrous IMHO.) Dark Souls is "clunky" in the same way, i.e. slower, more calculated movement with "weight" to it. That is by design.
Bugs and glitches? Sure, that's fine, but let's keep that in perspective. ELEX is over 3 times the size of Skyrim and didn't have a single game-breaking bug at launch. The only bugs I've experienced in 115 hours have been minor graphical glitches, a couple AI glitches and, well, that's about it. I think some people need to think back about release days for other large open-world RPGs, and then realize ELEX is 3 times (or more) the size of those.
So relatively speaking, it has no bugs at all.
As for PB faults, sure, their presentation isn't that great, voice acting could be better, animations, yada yada yada. So this is where I again point people to the fact the game was made by 29 people on a shoestring budget.
Taking that into consideration, what they continue to do with their games is equivalent to performing miracles.
This is why I gave up rating games a long time ago. How can you compare a passion project made by 29 people and pennies in comparison to something like a Bethesda or CDPR megalithic corporation production? Those games have 10 times or MORE the budget, and in some cases 10 times the personnel working on them.
I disagree with your premise because there is evidence of the contrary. IGN, one of the biggest outlets for gaming reviews you can find, has an official review where the reviewer himself was playing the game wrong. Flat out wrong. You're not supposed to fight 2 hour battles that take 1000s of hits, that is absurd. :lol: The reviewer did not understand the game mechanics, which brings me full circle to my idea for better in-game education about the game's workings.
I like ELEX and think it's an excellent total package, but hey, YMMV.
So this is where you respond I'm a fanboy and not being objective. Cheerio.