There is definitely a place for the Grimrock's of the world, just that ... there are puzzles that MUST be solved in order to proceed. There were no alternatives, or flexibility, or any choice. You either solved certain puzzles or went home. .
And this is bad because...?
Moderation in all things. There was a lot of good in LoG2, but *all* challenge boiling down to having too look at every f*ing wall gets a little monotonous. I can handle tough combat and can get through those. Having 90% of the game-time coming down to looking at every wall in every dungeon? There is only one level in the game from memory that didn't force you to blankly stare at every wall and look for the hidden button (other than the outdoors.) There really was little difference between what was needed to proceed and optional secret areas.
Completed LoG1, and don't think there were as many secrets, or that I had to look at every facet of every wall to win. Maybe I'm just not remembering as well, but DM2 had hidden switches for *hidden/optional stuff*, not just to get out and move on. Every f'ing thing is a hidden button or something. You know, if there was a fire in that castle everyone would die?! Aw shit, the flames are out of control, quick, lets drop a paper down this hole then drop down, drop another item, then climb these ladders, and drop four items then time our run to the next gate then climb down, hit the switch, climb back up, get on the glowing path...
There were good puzzles:
* The lights in the Pyramid
* The floor of spikes in the Cemetery Crypt
* Lots of teleporter/pressure plate puzzles (a good example was one on the first floor in the Pyramid - getting through the gate took some experimentation, but if you worked harder there was a secret you could see below you, so you could proceed but optionally go after extra content.)
There were bad puzzles:
* Every puzzle that required finding a hidden button to proceed.
* The puzzle with the teleporters on the second(?) floor of the castle. Even knowing how to do the puzzle was obnoxious. Tedious.
* Puzzles involving things that SHOULD be on automap. They really should have marked things like notes, heads, and teleporters on automap. Spent too much time looking for the "Silent head" and the Left Eye and the Right Eye, keyholes, buttons, switches, etc. Good puzzles, but needlessly prolonged by spartan maps.
Combat:
The only thing I can say was consistent were the fights. They weren't too bad and provided a great amount of challenge. However, having to do 200+ hps of damage to those rat guys, or any other creature? Those rats should have been the low hps, hard to hit type, not the high hps, normal to hit. Seemed like on balance, my to-hit was more based on my accuracy than the enemy AC (things like rat swarms excluded.)
There were also some other things that mad me scratch my head:
* Liked being able to dig, and accidentally dug up some Tome which appeared to be the end of a series to riddles. Felt kinda bad. If I were to replay this game, I would go directly to where everything is buried first, then proceed through the dungeons.
* There should have been some water breathing potion craftable. Maybe a 5th level Alchemy or something if they want to make it difficult, or 5th level water spell. I don't care, but seemed like they wanted to prolong certain areas.
* All that inventory and stuff I held onto in case it was needed. This is why games have stores. They should at least allow you to sell items, buy some misc items (Would a store that sells healing potions kill the programmers? What if I don't want a damn alchemist?)
Eh, I could go on, but you get my point. Good game, but it could use some tweaks.