Turning off the targeting assist helped me a bunch, and my second run-through this afternoon was much cleaner than my previous one. I played around with the different weapons, utilized the Stalker and the Vengeance rounds, both can make certain areas almost too easy. But if you want health back, you still have to plunge into close combat, so that's a decent balance.
Still, not happy with the camera, as I keep rolling into terrain and don't even know it's there until I'm stuck and getting Nobbed in the face. (It's as apt a phrase as any to describe the situation.) And there was still the issue of a few non-responsive "health-kills", which are pretty important.
If this game ends up like others and is $30 because of some crazy sale in six weeks, budget be damned. I will enlist for the Emprah.