The new artwork could work but the UI, the cut features (compared to the original, like missing tape recordings) and the bad puzzles drag this down. I love the original Gabriel Knight game (and definitely highly recommend the original) but this remake is junk. I stopped playing when I couldn't get the mime to follow me after some 80-100 tries. This is not a game, it's an exercise in frustration.
As another review pointed out, the puzzles are fairly repetitive. The visuals are stylish and nice but the story is uninteresting and bland. The game's user interface is pretty bad, everything is set up in a way that the player has to click many, many times to make tiny progresses. The transitions are slow and cannot be skipped; they become very boring and frustrating after a while, especially when the puzzles are nothing more than traveling from one end of the map to the other to pick up an item and then all the way back to use it. It's just a lot of filler to waste time to make the game seem longer. Not recommended, there are better ways to spend one's time.
I got this recently so issues that were present early on may have been fixed. I encountered a couple of minor glitches around the UI (I used the Sierra icon bar UI) but other than that, the game ran well and was fun to play. It's nice that the game supports different UI-s. Backgrounds and animations are really nice although I have to say I agree with those reviews that point out that the cut-scenes are far lower in quality than the rest of the game. I get it that full-screen animation is difficult but these looked more like cheap Flash animations. Music, sound effects and voice acting are nice. Like other reviewers, I found the main character's voice somewhat irritating but I got used to it after a while. I liked the story - it's reminiscent of Quest for Glory or King's Quest. The puzzles are not too complicated and - for the most part - logical. So far I only played as a water mage so I can't tell how much replayability it has but I liked the spells and the RPG elements. I saw several reviews mentioning that it's hard to get money / mana but I had no issues with either - I ended up carrying a number of health / mana potions and a bunch of gold by the end. I wouldn't call it the best adventure game ever but I got it on a sale and I'm happy I bought it.
