It's very promising and I really like the overall style and it seems to be working gameplay-wise. Great work!

I do dislike this grunting voice that goes 'uuuuuuuurgh' or something, please o please remove that one, it's terribly annoying to hear (yes even for a place-holder sound )!!

Combat lacks a blocking ability with the shield I think? And personally I don't like games in which you get sort of knocked unconsciously when you're hit and you can't do anything. To get the combat more fluidly it's essential to get that right, for example the 'player-got-hit' animations should either be shorter or they shouldn't stun the player so much. You don't necessarily have to change this though, but personally I don't like it.

Apart from these two things, others have already mentioned the other things, like the emptiness of the level and lack of variation.

So far so good though, I'm looking forward to seeing more of this!!

Cheers