I will read other people's posts and add comments, so some of this may be redundant to what they've said. But I want to give you my full take on it in one place.

My Play Style
Until very recently, I was free to play. Took me about a year to get my 5* gear, and at that point I went from 90% bomber to Full Bomber. I generally do full mad gear, the exception is Bombastic in LD. I do the "Damage Machine" setup: Mad hat, Mad armor, and an elite boom trinket, plus one +6 heart pendant. I solo FSC (I skip Vana) in this setup, usually not dying at all unless I lag into fire, then I die once. I bomb every where I go! I have no experience with the DR bomb so Gremlins have always been a problem for me. I own a few swords, and no 5* guns.

Note: None of the gear on the test server is heated. I would never normally walk into a place like this without gear heat lvl 10, for one I lose a trinket slot to get max CTR on my bombs, for two I do a whole lot less damage. This may skew the results of the test server a bit.

First Run
I made a Mad Setup for my first run, Tier 2. Since none of the gear on the test server is heated, I gave up my normal heart pendant and added an elite Bomb module, so I was max CTR and max damage. I took DR, RSS, Graviton, and AoA (I had no idea what I was going into). I think I pretty much only used DR, some RSS for sniping red rovers. I was tired, just wanted to see the levels, and ran right through it spamming bombs. I think I was at the 1k ce revive point halfway through level 1! But I just kept trucking.

Results

• I was on poison the whole time
• I was on fire most of the time
• My damage was nerfed, but spamming DR bombs things still died appreciatively fast
• The boss room was hell, but the boss died fast.
• I died a million times or more

Second Run
I didn't want to give up bombing yet. I recognized that I had played carelessly, and didn't know the level, but still had my doubts that bombing was viable. So, I made a "Safety Bomber" setup: Full Volcanic Demo, CTR Trinket, and +6 heart trinket. Half way through the level I gave up. I was still poisoned the whole time, and while the fire was much less painful, it was impossible to stay alive.

Results

• This is what we bombers refer to when we say that the devs and SK hates bombers. It was completely un-enjoyable to play.
• DR is handy, but there should be a viable way to bomb things without it
• Bombing is mostly close range, which makes the poison impossible to avoid.

Third Run
I gave it one more solo try. I thought, my problem is I'm poisoned all the time (and I do mean ALL. Like seriously, 90%. Certainly any time there the poison-oilers, I'm poisoned, without fail). So I put on the Deadly Virulisk, Swiftstrike Buckler, and elite True Shot and Quick Draw modules. I took Acheron, Sentenza, Umbra Driver, and DR bomb. I rarely used the bomb. My primary method was to snipe things with Sentenza. This worked fairly well, however the oilers could come from off screen, warp onto my head, and poison me anyways! I'd say on the first level, I spent maybe a quarter poisoned. i did decent damage, and was up to 160 energy revs.

level 2 was a joke. i was poisoned all the time and hit 1000ce probably by the second or third major room. It just became torture to try and keep gunning my way through, so I used the sword more. By this point, I wasn't trying to be careful, because every single room was too small, and was a fire/poison cluster, so I just tried to power through.

Results

• gunning may be the only way to safely solo. This is a bummer to me.
• definitely wish I could test this in a group!

Ok, so here's my final take on it.

The levels are very unenjoyable to play. Being poisoned all the time is just misery. With the oil spots on the floor, and the ability for them to drop it right on my head no matter what I do, I am promised to be poisoned the whole time. It would be as if at the beginning of the level you said "Due to energy warping, all damage is halved, and healing doesn't work except at certain stations." that would have the same effect. The only way I would want to suffer through this is if the payout was INSANE, I mean like 6k for the two levels, or gauranteed to drop actual gear items. Otherwise, why would I do this hell?

I have two primary suggestions. One is to lessen the poison, in every way. Make the oilers drop less, make them less able to bomb you from off screen, make the polyps drop less. It's a nice extra attack that these otherwise typical creatures have, but it's overkill. The polyp poison drop means that sword users are doomed to be poisoned. You could instead also nerf ALL the health and damage of creatures, but I'd rather just see less poison.

My second suggestion is to tone down the rooms. The levels feel primarily like one massive death room after another, especially the second level. There isn't a lot of maze, or puzzle, or anything. I think only the last two rooms had switches, there was another with a switch but I ignored it until I had killed everything. But to walk into yet another 3 wave room where it's so small and I'm gauranteed to be poisoned, well, it's boring, and hellish, and very unmotivating to play. However if the rooms were bigger, so it felt like skill could make a difference, or if there was more variety to what was happening, this would compensate for it.

The boss was cake. Sure I died a lot, but that was the room (again) that killed me. The bosses died so fast I couldn't even figure out what the new status on me was doing. Tone down the room, and make the boss tougher. I would compare it to Vanaduke like this: Consider that you made vanaduke die in two blitz charges, and instead you made the whole floor on fire, all the time, and put in 15 Slag Guards. Sure it would be impossible! But Vana himself is a push over. That's how it feels now, that it isn't the bosses that are hard, but their rooms. I'd rather see hard bosses but not have rooms that felt like gauranteed death.

The whole thing felt like an execution. I wouldn't mind a fight that I am going to have to work very hard to win, say, I'm up against 2 ninjas. This feels more like I'm strapped down to the chair, waiting for the axe to fall. It isn't really a fight at all, not even an unfair one, it's just an execution. And as I said above, I have no reason to opt into an execution. LoA right now feels more like a really really really tough fight.

I also have one concern about the "story." Why are the poison oilers, well, oilers? Why do they light on fire? The setting is gorgeous, with the whole complex and the burning trees and fall leaves. I love it! But when we read Whisper's notes we see the whole thing is a toxin factory. Ok, explains the toxin drones and such. And why the oil patches cause poison (they look a little brown for that). But why do they light on fire? Why would he send scorches to deal with things that heal with fire? Is he that much of an idiot? I get the fire in the building, because he's burning it down (but then why are we here?). It would make more sense to me if the poison oilers were more like poison lichens that dropped poison, but did not respond to fire in any special way. And then if there were fire traps and such, since the place is burning down. So, fire and poison together I'm OK with, I just don't understand why Whisper would burn oilers to death. It's like trying to stop a glacier by pouring ice water on it: It doesn't work! So maybe I missed something, but the story doesn't make any sense.

I'm hoping to test it out with a group. maybe it's less miserable that way. But right now, my verdict is: Way too hard. and more than that, it's the constant poison which is unavoidable that I don't like. Add to that the biggest Vita is a 6, and it's just ridiculous.