Re destructoid review:
I agree that the gameplay is somewhat repetitive, and there are some graphical glitches.
I personally haven't experienced QTEs and combos not being recognized. Actually, as long as I bothered to time the combos, they came out alright. I didn't think the attacks were slow either. The first attack in a combo is slower than the others, but it's not that bad.
Things I don't agree with:
He says the game isn't balanced, the reason being that executions recharge health and kills enemies quickly, but it can be risky. Given the huge benefits of executions, wouldn't the risk actually balance it out? If it had no risk, wouldn't you become some kind of god-like being? It is frustrating to accidentally start an execution sequence though, but he doesn't touch on that.
He also says the framerate drops during some sequences. But then he specifically says he couldn't chain combos when being surrounded by enemies, which makes me think it's not quite that. Maybe he really does have framerate problems in those sequences, but you're (generally) not supposed to be able to chain combos when being surrounded by enemies because of recoil. When you get hit, your combo gets interrupted and you have to take some time to recover, which means getting boxed in is deadly for your character.
Then he complains some more about getting boxed in. Which raises the question, what is he doing getting boxed in? Considering what he said earlier about "prodding the screen until everything's dead", it sounds like he was too busy button-mashing to avoid getting boxed in. Besides, what do you expect them to do, politely line up and wait their turn?
His complaints actually convince me that this isn't a braindead button-masher.