>>513776309
Well, for a game that puts so much emphasis on stealth, particularly in order to get a good ending, that mechanic is rather barebones and the human npcs fluctuate between being blind chickens and knowing exactly where you are & magdumping as if they've just looted a large untapped gunstore.
The plot itself is rather predictable, mostly because the game is rather short and they hadn't had the opportunity to conceal the parts that come back later well and they stick out.
Miller's English dub is mellower than the Russian one and at parts came off as comical when the VA seemed to be overdoing it. Can't remember if that were the case in the previous games, it's been a while and he wasn't as major of a character there. Likewise, cannibal Shoigu and the doctor's VAs overdid their parts while pretending to pretend while on the radio, further spoiling the reveal (though iirc it's not much better in the Russian dub). Imo the payoff would've been greater had the devs been more discreet.
I'm sure there's fans of just crawling through the dark tunnels all the time but imo the environmental variety redeemed the game is many ways and was a great choice indeed. Afaik none of this is in the books because the author went full schizo and squirted off a spiteful turd of a book at around the same time that had completely different story and vibes. Haven't read any of his works; they were all the rage 15ish years ago though.
Besides the outdoors areas in the Autumn (?) chapter (afaik they'd ended up getting severely downsized due to the crunch though, the dam area was supposed to be much larger), I liked their idea of checking out the Novosibirsk metro, with its separately developed nasties and distinct survivors' fates.
If you enjoyed the game but haven't played the DLCs, they may be worth a look, some fun moments in them, e.g. Sam getting piss drunk with a sub captain:
https://youtu.be/GD9k5Wuc0dA?t=145