"Lost and overwhelmed" is pretty much how I'd describe how I felt during the whole area, to be sure. I feel like it would've been better handled [...] without having to struggle with clumsy controls and fiddly pathfinding in such a life-or-death race against time. I get so frustrated and angry just trying to figure out what's going on and where the triggers are that will cause scripted events to progress, it takes me right out of the narrative and reminds me I'm playing a video game, and a broken-feeling one at that.
I don't have anything deep to add, but I wanted to highlight this. Not that it's an extremely uncommon comment. On the contrary, I've read this too often (and I share that experience). But it's a good summary.
While there are many things that Larian won't change because they are part of their vision, like Shove I would presume, it is (hopefully) not part of their vision to have the game Ease-Of-Use being that poor. And to have players lost and overwhelmed. And generally to have players struggle, and describe their experience with words such as clumsy, fiddly, tedious, hassle, wrestle, frustrating, unfair, etc.
Larian could easily improve usability without compromising on their vision.
