Disclaimer: I only finished up to the second case. I couldn't take anymore after that. Also, there will be minor spoilers ahead. So starting off, coming off of Crimes and Punishments Sherlock is noticeably made rougher, a bit edgier, and his accent is toned way down. His portayal has been heavily adjusted to fit a much more standard protagonist mold. The b-plot running through the game is already wildly out of character for Holmes having an adopted daughter. The man is known for shutting romance out of his life because it distracts from his detective work. This is not a family man and again, they play this relationship in the most stock way. However, video games aren't necessarily expected to have great writing. So how does it play? Well, for about half of the game it's pretty much Crimes and Punishments again. Which is good, because the detective mini-games are as solid as they were in that game and the actual system for drawing conclusions to cases is as great as ever. But- that pales in comparison to the half-hearted, derivative, semi-action dreck the rest of the detective gameplay has been shoved aside for. In the first two cases you already have: - A sequence where Wiggins is tailing a suspect as if Assassin's Creed never went out of style. - A sequence where Holmes must dodge rifle fire by way of a cover system that feels like it's out of a PS2 game. - Holmes and Watson taking cover and advancing on a suspect in a setpiece that would generously be compared to a Telltale action sequence. This comes to a peak at the end of the second case, when after you've collected enough clue that it's incredibly obvious who the culprit is, you're launched into a mind numbing flashback containing something like seven character action game-tier puzzles. I am not joking, these would not feel out of place as filler in something like God of War 1. This is not a Sherlock Holmes game, this is half of a Sherlock Holmes game with a potluck of very outdated action game fluff.
