Dead by Daylight has some major problems.

I'll start at the beginning. Right at the start of any match, the game freezes and stutters heavily while it loads in textures. What the heck is a loading screen even for if you're going to continue loading during gameplay.
This period of stuttering and freezing lasts about 30 seconds before things stabilise, and its mostly smooth from then on, but those first few seconds can be critical. If you're unlucky enough to have the killer come in your direction, its possible to get cut down while you're still loading in.

The game is generally poorly optimised, framerates are far too low for the graphical quality on offer, and there are no advanced graphics settings to customise, only a generic low/medium/high/ultra. I am btw running on ultra, though lowering it doesnt seem to make much difference to visuals.
Everything is also just plain ugly. Part of it is the horror aesthetic - everything's supposed to look filthy, rusted, muddy, dark and dingy. But this is nothing like, say, resident evil 7. Too many textures are blurry and low res, especially the characters. Too many baked shadows and highlights are used to compensate for a lack of lighting tech, everything looks flat, as if it were made in an era before normal mapping existed. Lights show through walls, the gameworld feels cluttered and messy, your eye can't comfortably rest on anything. And everything is covered in a sickening orangey/greeney/brown tint. The draw distance is short, a lot of art assets are reused endlessly, and every map looks and feels the same. The game is just an eyesore to look at, beyond what the aesthetic calls for.

There's a definite attempt at a horror feel, but it gets lost on mechanics. For some absurd reason, the survivors get a third person perspective, and the killer is in a more restrictive first person view. Anyone with a lick of sense can point out this is the opposite of what would be scary. Survivors can pan their camera around and have 360 degree view at all times, so its easy to outflank the killer, or to watch him while you have your back turned and doing stuff right under his nose.

Theres too much focus on too few mechanics. Exploiting windows and pallets to slow down the killer and stall for time, abusing every geometric feature on the landscape. Survivors can be rescued from a hook in a comically short time, and are immune to attack during many animations. The short unhook time is the dumbest feature of all, people will run right up to your prisoner and unhook them infront of your eyes, you can't interrupt the animation because of your attack cooldowns and invincibility frames for the survivors

The killer's only recourse to the unhook mechanics is to sit there and camp someone while they hang, but even then you can't stop it, all you can do is get in one hit during the process, and most likely take the rescuer in exchange for losing the prisoner. Blink for a second and they're both gone.

But despite being forced to do it by design, people somehow hate camping and will rage at you in postgame chat, if you don't just quit. Probably due to the losing items on death (see below), survivors are always salty about losing. The community in general seems terrible and constantly angry at everyone. Survivor players expect you to roll over and let them win, there will be salt in postgame chat if you do anything else.

Generator mechanics are similarly stupid. The killer needs to go through a 3 second animation to sabotage a generator which will cause its progress to decay. But survivors only need to touch it for 0.1 seconds to reverse the sabotage. Which leads to more stupid moments as survivors run up and repair it right infront of your eyes and sometimes even before you finish the sabotaging animation

The gameplay forces you away from the horror feel that everything else is trying to inspire and gameplay often becomes slapstick, like an episode of scooby doo. When you play killer, its like herding cats, or trying to pickup bars of soap with wet hands. You don't feel powerful or monstrous, you just feel silly. Survivors are cheeky and do not give a ♥♥♥♥, fear is exactly the opposite of what they display as they keep unhooking each other in a game of whack-a-mole. Playing survivor is about exploiting all the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ you can, and a lot of it makes no sense from either perspective.

In general, there aren't enough mechanics. You see one pallet or wardrobe or generator, you've seen them all. Theres only one gamemode, and a handful of maps that all look identical and reuse assets constantly. It feels like a small part of what should be a bigger game, and its disappointing that that's all there is.

There's no way to communicate ingame. While it sort of makes sense that there's no global chat, it seems silly that you can't locally shout to other survivors. Impromptu tactical planning with a risk of being overheard would add some depth to things.
Also irksome, you often can't communicate out of game. Since the game seems to use P2P multiplayer, single lobbies with no run-on matches. So at the end of every match on the postgame screen, there's nothing to do but leave and start another. And if the host leaves instantly (which they often will) then the postgame chat lobby shuts down too, and you can't talk to the other players about what happened

The game gives you a sort of skill tree which you constantly unlock new things in. It seems great at first, you can take one tool into a game with you, each with a very specific, niche, and often weak feature. As permananant unlocks they seem minor and pretty balanced, then i found out that all of this stuff is temporary.
Items and addons that you buy there are theoretically persistent, if you dont die. Die in a match and they're lost. You also get "offerings" which are consumable items that do something for one match, like increase the chance of a certain map, or give a small bonus to XP. Nothing that actually feels powerful or remotely worth the time it takes to use. So why on earth did these things have to be single use
Almost nothing can actually be unlocked and kept, you're constantly knocked back to nothing and all sense of progression is lost. It never feels like you're accomplishing anything. Everything you do unlock feels pointlessly weak and token too. If these are going to be temporary things, they should have been a lot stronger. Everything feels like it was balanced around permanant unlocks, and then they were made temporary and loseable for no reason at all

There is some fun to be had. If you try to ignore the slapstick nature of many mechanics, just immerse yourself and try to enjoy it, it can last for a couple hours, maybe a day or two. I'm writing this on a free weekend.
but longterm? I can't see much to it

5.5/10
Needs a lot of reworking gameplay, a complete graphical overhaul, and more maps that are actually different.

Maybe they'll make a sequel and improve on it. At this point the game is unlikely to significantly change

Dead by Daylight has some major problems. I'll start at the beginning. Right at the start of any match, the game freezes and stutters heavily while it loads in textures. What the heck is a loading screen even for if you're going to continue loading during gameplay. This period of stuttering and freezing lasts about 30 seconds before things stabilise, and its mostly smooth from then on, but those first few seconds can be critical. If you're unlucky enough to have the killer come in your direction, its possible to get cut down while you're still loading in. The game is generally poorly optimised, framerates are far too low for the graphical quality on offer, and there are no advanced graphics settings to customise, only a generic low/medium/high/ultra. I am btw running on ultra, though lowering it doesnt seem to make much difference to visuals. Everything is also just plain ugly. Part of it is the horror aesthetic - everything's supposed to look filthy, rusted, muddy, dark and dingy. But this is nothing like, say, resident evil 7. Too many textures are blurry and low res, especially the characters. Too many baked shadows and highlights are used to compensate for a lack of lighting tech, everything looks flat, as if it were made in an era before normal mapping existed. Lights show through walls, the gameworld feels cluttered and messy, your eye can't comfortably rest on anything. And everything is covered in a sickening orangey/greeney/brown tint. The draw distance is short, a lot of art assets are reused endlessly, and every map looks and feels the same. The game is just an eyesore to look at, beyond what the aesthetic calls for. There's a definite attempt at a horror feel, but it gets lost on mechanics. For some absurd reason, the survivors get a third person perspective, and the killer is in a more restrictive first person view. Anyone with a lick of sense can point out this is the opposite of what would be scary. Survivors can pan their camera around and have 360 degree view at all times, so its easy to outflank the killer, or to watch him while you have your back turned and doing stuff right under his nose. Theres too much focus on too few mechanics. Exploiting windows and pallets to slow down the killer and stall for time, abusing every geometric feature on the landscape. Survivors can be rescued from a hook in a comically short time, and are immune to attack during many animations. The short unhook time is the dumbest feature of all, people will run right up to your prisoner and unhook them infront of your eyes, you can't interrupt the animation because of your attack cooldowns and invincibility frames for the survivors The killer's only recourse to the unhook mechanics is to sit there and camp someone while they hang, but even then you can't stop it, all you can do is get in one hit during the process, and most likely take the rescuer in exchange for losing the prisoner. Blink for a second and they're both gone. But despite being forced to do it by design, people somehow hate camping and will rage at you in postgame chat, if you don't just quit. Probably due to the losing items on death (see below), survivors are always salty about losing. The community in general seems terrible and constantly angry at everyone. Survivor players expect you to roll over and let them win, there will be salt in postgame chat if you do anything else. Generator mechanics are similarly stupid. The killer needs to go through a 3 second animation to sabotage a generator which will cause its progress to decay. But survivors only need to touch it for 0.1 seconds to reverse the sabotage. Which leads to more stupid moments as survivors run up and repair it right infront of your eyes and sometimes even before you finish the sabotaging animation The gameplay forces you away from the horror feel that everything else is trying to inspire and gameplay often becomes slapstick, like an episode of scooby doo. When you play killer, its like herding cats, or trying to pickup bars of soap with wet hands. You don't feel powerful or monstrous, you just feel silly. Survivors are cheeky and do not give a fuck, fear is exactly the opposite of what they display as they keep unhooking each other in a game of whack-a-mole. Playing survivor is about exploiting all the bullshit you can, and a lot of it makes no sense from either perspective. In general, there aren't enough mechanics. You see one pallet or wardrobe or generator, you've seen them all. Theres only one gamemode, and a handful of maps that all look identical and reuse assets constantly. It feels like a small part of what should be a bigger game, and its disappointing that that's all there is. There's no way to communicate ingame. While it sort of makes sense that there's no global chat, it seems silly that you can't locally shout to other survivors. Impromptu tactical planning with a risk of being overheard would add some depth to things. Also irksome, you often can't communicate out of game. Since the game seems to use P2P multiplayer, single lobbies with no run-on matches. So at the end of every match on the postgame screen, there's nothing to do but leave and start another. And if the host leaves instantly (which they often will) then the postgame chat lobby shuts down too, and you can't talk to the other players about what happened The game gives you a sort of skill tree which you constantly unlock new things in. It seems great at first, you can take one tool into a game with you, each with a very specific, niche, and often weak feature. As permananant unlocks they seem minor and pretty balanced, then i found out that all of this stuff is temporary. Items and addons that you buy there are theoretically persistent, if you dont die. Die in a match and they're lost. You also get "offerings" which are consumable items that do something for one match, like increase the chance of a certain map, or give a small bonus to XP. Nothing that actually feels powerful or remotely worth the time it takes to use. So why on earth did these things have to be single use Almost nothing can actually be unlocked and kept, you're constantly knocked back to nothing and all sense of progression is lost. It never feels like you're accomplishing anything. Everything you do unlock feels pointlessly weak and token too. If these are going to be temporary things, they should have been a lot stronger. Everything feels like it was balanced around permanant unlocks, and then they were made temporary and loseable for no reason at all There is some fun to be had. If you try to ignore the slapstick nature of many mechanics, just immerse yourself and try to enjoy it, it can last for a couple hours, maybe a day or two. I'm writing this on a free weekend. but longterm? I can't see much to it 5.5/10 Needs a lot of reworking gameplay, a complete graphical overhaul, and more maps that are actually different. Maybe they'll make a sequel and improve on it. At this point the game is unlikely to significantly change