Pixel-hunting puzzles? Check.
Obtuse puzzles? Check.
Puzzles that you can't complete because you didn't happen to grab item X from zone Y but you have no way of knowing that you can't beat it? Check.
Convoluted story progression? Check.
A few puzzles and trapped areas (when well designed) can really add to an RPG and create a little respite from the combat, but D:OS has them by the truckload, slowing the game down to a crawl and forcing lots of backtracking. This is a shame as I think D:OS's combat is really great fun.
The puzzles thus far have been terrible as well, particularly in Luculla Forest. If someone had told me a few months back that there would be pixel-hunting in D:OS I would have laughed in his face. The plethora of puzzles wouldn't be so bad if they were actually satisfying to solve, but they're not clever puzzles.
This has completely detracted from my game experience and to be perfectly honest I don't think I can even bring myself to finish it. D:OS feels like a good RPG ball-and-chained by a terrible point-n-click adventure.
Sorry for the bluntness but I'm a little upset over this as I had really high hopes for the game.
You've been spoiled by all the hand-holding RPG's that have come out in the last 5-10 years that tell you exactly where your waypoints are, exactly where to pick up the items you need, and what your ultimate destinations are supposed to be. The games that completely take the fun out of exploring; linear storybook games that, if you are lucky, give you a small illusion of being open-exploration games (Dragon Age 2 was massively guilty of this, not to mention worse things).
D:OS was made in the spirit of the old mastercraft PC RGP's of the 1990's. Specifically, games like Baldur's Gate. They are for gamers that like RPG's precisely because RPGs dont "hold your hand" in an unrealistic way, as if some omnipotent god is floating over your shoulder telling you how to solve everything and where to find everything every step of the way. It's about exploring and discovering things on your own.
As for me, annoyingly ambiguous puzzles satisfy me all the more when I finally solve them. Or secrets that don't tell me exactly what I need to access them - if I discover how to access them either through my own critical thinking or on accident, it's immensely satisfying. Games that allow me to completely shut my brain off are not satisfying at all. And if something is really troubling you to the point where you fear you might stop enjoying the game, you can always look online for solutions to problems or difficult fights.
EDIT: It should be noted that in the last 2 paragraphs I'm speaking on good RPG's in general here, not really D:OS specifically. I'm trying not to be biased since enjoyment of such things is highly subjective. So for my only big complaint in this game is the extremely average, unimpressive inventory management. It really grinds my gears that I can't type in an exact number when I want to split a stack, for example, and instead I have to incessantly fiddle with a slider until it lands on the right number.
