Spook Shack worked because the character writing was actually quite good and had a smooth progression.
We got to know Manato in 2.0.
We meet Alice and we're basically strangers.
Then she comes to us for help, with a tie-in to Lucy, so we're service and client.
We then reconnect with Manato, who helps introduce us to Yuzuha.
Going through trials and tribulations, we become closer to Yuzuha and Alice.

They tried to do a similar thing here.
We know Soldier 11 and Trigger.
Seed is a weird fuck, so we can excuse her, and we don't really become closer to her in the main story anyways, so that's actually pretty accurate.
However, we're basically contractors for Obol Squad, and don't move much beyond that before Orphie suddenly gives us her entire backstory.
I felt like the story was quite a bit shorter than 2.1's too, even including the straight corridor Marcel hacking bits.
An hour or more of buildup would have been enough, but they REALLY wanted to show off the Isolde fight. Which was good, to be fair.
But it makes everything before that look worse in comparison.