Unfortunately I should have looked through a few more reviews before buying and save myself the trouble. Sure, the scenery & environment are beautiful and the stories interesting, but for me it was a huge step down after Crimes & Punishments, which was excellent. What bothered me the most were the timed puzzles. If you're a fan, don't mind my review and go for it, you'll love it. But for gamers like me who absolutely hate timed puzzles, this was an absolute nightmare. Of course not all of the puzzles are timed, but already during the second case the amount of timed vs. not timed mini-games and puzzles is increased so much, that I simply gave up after finishing the second case. Won't for sure continue with the game. I prefer logical/crime games and puzzles for the possibility to sit back, relax and take some time to thing everything through before proceeding and I don't want to be chased around by the game with a ticking time clock on the screen. I don't mind one or two such timed puzzles if they make some sense, but the amount in this game is just horrible. Aside from that I wasn't really fond of the changed looks and characterization of Holmes & Watson compared to the previous games - it just didn't feel right. Also disappointed that an option of 'incorrect character portrait' was introduced without having the chance to go back and correct it right away. In a game without an option of manual saves this creates tedious repeats of multiple scenes when you have to reload from an autosave the game itself did much earlier. I'm looking forward to the next game in series, hoping the developers will go back to the quality of 'Crimes and Punishments' for the game and remove all those awful timed puzzles and bring back the original characters of Holmes and Watson.
