This is my first survival game. The game was gifted to me by my son. I did not find this game brutal at all. He also gifted me Conan Exiles about a week later, I would say that game is brutal. Many of the first creatures one encounters are not killable, even after a few armour progressions, and if one does not reclaim the items on their tombstone after death within 30 minutes they are lost.

It does not take long to learn the creature mechanics in this game, and taking the time to learn how to block/parry makes every creature other than bosses, easily killable. Being obsessively compulsive about wearing and upgrading one's armour progressively, makes the next biome easy to advance into. One of the tougher aspects was getting enough wolf fur. Before we had cold resistance gear, my son made a series of warm-up huts along a torch lit path into the mountains while I was offline, and I ventured into the mountains when he was offline and got enough reagents to gear up both of us.

Building and learning the game mechanics can be a little time consuming, but I am sure that is by design. Compared to other games of this genre I played after my introduction to Valheim, such as Conan Exiles and 7 Days to Die, I agree with the OP, I do not consider this game brutal.