Your #1 was what I enjoyed about it too! Pulpy is the right word, but I liked that it was tightly contained with a well conceived lore and presentation.
I like shorter punchy games these days, and I enjoyed it. A rich little story to play through once or twice for flavor or to try out different story paths. But def not at the large scale level of games like tw3 or bg for sure.
Agree combat got stale quickly. Would have been torture in a longer game.
