I've played the harder difficulty and it wasn't that hard, mainly because the IA of the enemies neeeds to be improved: enemies climbing up and down on the same ladder multiple times on a turn, or teleporting away and walking back to where they were initially.
It's true that there's less money, but you can still save/sell stuff and get decent gear.
I'd say the difficulty is leaning to the easy side, I know it isn't supposed to be the hardest one, but it wouldn't hurt to improve the difficulty curve, because the second half of Chapter 1 was way easier than the first half.
