I also found it strange that boy was just... there, with his parents murdered. Was it supposed to be a Batman reference or something?
Wonder if that was a scrapped mini quest.
There were quite a few NPCs in the city which I thought felt like they should lead somewhere. I think it is just consequence of act3 being a more traditional, passive experience in many ways. You find characters, stories and vignettes but they tend to not be as intricate or intractable as previous chapters. Comes with an attempt to build a sizeable city I suppose. Not bad, but a bit of a whiplash after chapter1.