I didn't have too much trouble once I mastered the timing. A great way to regain Force and then smash the ever living shit out of the group that surrounded me. Plus I loved kicking people.

Clunky as fuck is being kind.  I quit playing it because the combat is bad.  I really wanted to like this game, and overall I do, it's the best damn Star Wars game we've had in a while anyways for a single player experience, and I think I tried decently to figure it out and make it work, but the lightsaber melee combat is just really awkward and not good feeling and that's a letdown in this game.

I agree with everything you said.  The 1v1 fights aren't so terrible, the one-hit-kill animations you get on correctly countered/parried enemies are really satisfying, but as you said, it gets really frustrating when you start facing multiple enemies at once.  You start taking hits and it's like you're perpetually stun locked and every time you try to close the distance to attack you get shot or hit again and staggered, then the melee enemies start beating your ass from all directions, you start flailing your lightsaber around like a flyswatter in a desperate attempt to beat the enemy back...it's just not satisfying or fun or entertaining.

I get that the protagonist in this game is not a Jedi Master, he was a Jedi in training and therefore not as adept at chopping off limbs and throwing people across rooms as Obi Wan or Yoda or Skywalker or whoever.  But man it just really feels like the developers missed the mark IMO with regards to the combat, which I'm sure is easier said than done, it's easy for me to armchair critique a lot of hard work the developers put into the game.  But the combat above slicing and dicing a couple stormtroopers up or killing the local fauna is really disappointing to me and a complete buzzkill for the entire game.