It’s a stealth game with really simplified stealth that is far worse than the best stealth games and it’s a shoot shoot bang bang game with gunplay far worse than the best.
This is the wrong way to approach any game in my opinion.
The individual parts of a game are only to be seen as what they bring to the whole.
For example the platforming in uncharted is autopilot shit, but it works fantastic within the gunfights, for exactly that reason (and it's a problem when they focus on it, like 4 does) as it's an element of a larger system of elements.
Similarly as i said the fluid mechanics of Last of Us aren't super deep on their own, but the game is trying to move you from area to area relatively smoothly, so that the narrative doesn't completely get lost as you wait 30 minutes for the guards to do their rounds.
I'm not gonna claim it's prefect or even great, but a comparison of the individual pieces to other more "specialized" games, is misguided.
That said, i agree with the notion that making your companion completely invisible was too easy of a cop out for them, i understand why they did it (it's infuriating losing because of your stupid AI buddies) but it breaks immersion too many times.
I also think the first 30 to 40% of the game could've used A LOT of trimming, you just move from room to room to room, with little in the way of story development.
Once you leave the fat guy behind though, it picks up at a good pace, all the way to the end.
