I do miss the sense of awe and mystery of VoG

You'll never experience that again. That's just how it works with these things. But did you explore the underbelly? Plenty of mystery! Did you know you can skip the Standard fighting in the Hub? You can sneak your way right to the bathhouse or pleasure gardens.

CheapLEY found the path to the Gauntlet as well... But I now realize that doing the courtyard fight gives us a chest, so maybe we should be doing that, since we've got it all figured out...

Just wanted to see what everyone thinks of the new raid so far!

I've only played through the first half or so, but I've watched videos of the whole thing. I'm enjoying it a lot so far. The setting is interesting. It's probably my least favorite Raid in terms of the atmosphere and visual style of the locations, but I appreciate how different it is from the raids Bungie has released so far. I do miss the sense of awe and mystery of VoG, or even the sheer scale and intimidation of King's Fall. But still, I'm glad Bungie took the raid in a very different stylistic direction this time around. Plus it shows a side of Cabal society that we've never seen before, which is pretty cool.

How about everyone else?

Have you explored the Underbelly?! VoG had some neat spaces outside of combat, but mostly it was "well that was neat but there was nothing really there." The Underbelly of the Leviathan is massive and there are multiple secrets and puzzles to go along with the cool high tech / industrial / behind the scenes setting. And then there are the actual challenges! Each one has been complex but fun and nothing nearly so smotheringly clockwork-y a King's Fall.

Yeah, the gaudy gold surface of the Leviathan is not my thing, but there's a whole mess of stuff to see beneath that surface and beyond the actual Raid challenges that it sounds like you haven't even glimpsed yet.

For me, Leviathan has already surpassed Vault of Glass, both in actual challenges and in the level of exploration there is to do, and that's no easy feat!

You're talking more about actual mysteries to solve/stuff to explore, which is a very good point and absolutely worth noting. I'm talking more about a feeling of mystery, which is a far more nebulous thing to talk about :)

Even now, when I play VoG, I want to see what's on the other side of those caves, across the endless pits. There's something about it that is begging to be explored. A sense of wonder and danger.

Leviathan has already proven to be deeper in terms of actual secrets to find, and that's awesome. I'm just saying that nothing about the aesthetic design of the place makes me want to go looking for secrets. Just a personal preference, that's all :)

Just wanted to see what everyone thinks of the new raid so far!

I've only played through the first half or so, but I've watched videos of the whole thing. I'm enjoying it a lot so far. The setting is interesting.

I love the hub world aspect of it all. It really feels like something that you're free to tackle over the course of a week, rather than something that you're forced to slog through in one run.

I also think it's great how it's all about execution and teamwork rather than gear checks and complexity.

I like that it's not super punishing when somebody dies, or when someone isn't at the ideal light level. After the bath house, I realized that I was still wearing my rare Prophet Snow legs, and I said "screw it" and kept them on for the next encounter, since the game didn't punish me for it. That would have been pretty impossible in Destiny 1 with any new raid. Your skill is pretty much the only thing that might make you a liability.

The aesthetics are neat. Got a real Bioshock vibe from the place, and the lighting is great for screenshots, whether you're in the Underbelly or in the Pleasure house, it has a lot of variety...

Plus, this is one of the most satisfying raids so far, since a huge part of it is about becoming more efficient, rather than being good at pumping enemies full of ammo. By the time we beat the Pleasure House, we were a machine (two phases with a 48x damage stack on the first!).

We haven't beat pleasure gardens yet, but we did clear the baths in ONE phase. BAM!