The average hardcore game is 5.675 times the picture quality of this (and ones that aren't hardcore, actually). The average really hardcore (professional) game is 11.25 times the picture quality, assuming 1080p.
Just pointing out that while the console crowd are fine considering this hardcore in comparison to what they have, pc gamers mostly will disagree due to the game limiting their reaction times, being a slideshow, and being completely blurry and undefined because the image is upscaled 2.8125 times to fit the average monitor.
I mean sure, it's a single player game, but there are significantly more challenging things that test your capability much more. You can hop on Quake Live or Promod and have to play against players that can react in 1/120th of a second and have no practical skill cap, as opposed to a single player game that's designed for you to be able to win, and limits you to reacting in 1/30th of a second (and possibly slower, depending on framerate drops).
Unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean by hardcore. And in all fairness, I don't really know much about the game, but it doesn't sound like it's particularly hardcore, you just have to learn attack patterns apparently. But if you consider learning attack patterns hardcore, then you're mistaken... unless it's a bullet hell. Or Tetris [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kqKOlcaZuI&feature=player_detailpage#t=309s].