I actually agree with this appraisal of the first Syberia. I've never played Syberia 2, but I do remember a lot of adventure games from that period had this going on to the point where it seemed like a trend. Still Life, Syberia, The Longest Journey, and so on bled into games like A Vampyre Story and Gray Matter. Not that making more games with female protagonists isn't a positive development, but of those I thought Syberia was the weakest.

If I'm going to warm to an adventure with really limited interactions and where the characterization of places and characters is so little reflected in what I can click on with my mouse, I'd at least want a clearer definition of what I'm doing. Syberia was more bewildering than mysterious and I felt like I was locked up in my aunt's attic with a bunch of toys from a bygone era and several of her friends speaking about people and places I couldn't understand. It was frustratingly designed, although beautiful and really quite a shallow game. There were a lot of other games from that period that did a much better job with the ethos it had going.