Cheers. I'll add this to the op.

I've been waiting for someone to post it on Resetera and never thought of just searching for it myself ... 

I'm glad they went for something different this time. How many games have used basically the exact same combat system with only minor changes?. GOW1,2,3, the two PSP games and Ascension. As much as I liked it, it was beginning to feel stale and repetitive. By Ghost of Sparta I had kinda tuned out.

it needed a change, the formula was growing abit old.

^ see MTzeHvor? Spike isnt alone in thinking so, read plenty of people say such on resetera/Neogaf too.

Too people saying its repetitive, look at these (from the tutorial/beginning of the game):

*from resetera's Jett:

looks like a light-light-light-heavy combo.

dash-light-heavy?

Light-light-charged heavy?

Parry and a simple light-light-light-light.

The axe-throwing mechanic looks really interesting here. I'm guessing here but it seems that headshots power up your axe big time for the next attack. You can see that a cooldown shows up on the left side of the screen too.

You can aim the axe and cut the legs off the enemies, which seems to serve up the enemies for a juggle (you can see him bounce off the ground). Kratos instead stuns him a shoulder bash and ends it with a back-finishing attack.

Kratos freezes an enemy with the axe (still not sure how that's activated), and does what looks look like a light attacks combo with his shield to another enemy.

Kratos goes back to the frozen enemy and ends a light-light-light combo with a spinning finisher move different from the ground pound attack in the first gif.

And this is just in the begining of the game, with combos left over not shown to us.
As you level, and up some of your attributes (like say magic) that ll undoubtably unlock new abilities for your character as well.

Also all the people worried about his attacks not all being AOE, so he can take out packs of monsters at once.
this is the early game turtorial area (i assume).... once he levels up there will  be more aoe attacks im sure.

Saw those in the video. In motion it looked slow and boring. Obviously I believe you're right about new abilities and more combos the further you get with the game, with the RPG element that's pretty much a given. But this footage leaves a lot to be desired. 

I also really hope we get to mute the kid. I hate baby sitting games in general,especially when annoying side character or kid character wont stop stocking and yelling, like we see in the GOW video. 

The phrase "cutting off your nose to spite your face" comes to mind. I'll fully agree that GoW needed some revitalization, but this feels like making the necessary changes and then going about 500 yards too far. If you want to give the series a new spark, add some new mechanics in a new setting; maybe throw in a hard lock on system and increase the combat's depth so skilled players can go crazy. Altering the core combat so that it looks more like God Hand with an axe rather than God of War seems...questionable to me.

Also, referencing Neogaf is a little suspect given how many people are up in arms over the changes there as well.

Remains to be experienced doesn't it?

How can you say how it feels based on looking?

I don't see how you can say it looks stiff when it looks very smooth to me. The animations are really well done and the impacts are really clear and distinguishable. I am honestly in love with how the gameplay looks. 

That is an exaggeration lol.

Lords of the fallen didn't even feel like you were hitting the enemy properly. Can't say the same about god of war. They even have the impact freeze like you saw in previous god of war games. If you don't know what that is then a good example is the street fighter games and how every time you hit the game slightly freezes. 

Based on that alone i can say that it 'feels' way better than you are letting on.

I really hope this isn't the case. Because I can't stand that either.

Some people mirror your thoughts but this is by far the deepest combat system in a god of war game. The speed of the combat isn't inherently bad like you are making it out to be. You say it looks the weakest but your reasoning for that is flawed because there exists many other games with similar systems and no one is complaining about it there. The only difference would be the fact that it is a change for the franchise but in order to determine that to be a valid reason for it to be bad, we would have to actually play the game first.

Also you don't have to keep repeating yourself about killing Kratos off and playing as his son.