Okay, I beat the game once, halfway through my second run on Hard...
I think I've pretty much come across everything I would dislike in the game.
- The animations during cutscenes. My god, they look so amateur. The animations literally pause when they're done, and wait for the next cue (such as Cole talking) to unfreeze and continue the jerkiness. It really does detract from the immersiveness at times... because aurally, it's amazing, but then it's paired up with these Tomb Raider 1-esque animations and it's just distracting.
- Enemy behavior/accuracy. I understand ramping up the difficulty makes enemies "smarter" and better shots in most games, but c'mon now... I'm getting shot with pinpoint accuracy from every direction possible at times. One mission in particular, had me going into battle with 3 allies. What did the enemies do? COMPLETELY IGNORE THE ALLIES and focus completely on me. I wasn't even doing anything, just surveying the action. Just wow.
- Gameplay glitches. I've run into at least 15 invisible walls in my 15 or so hours with the game, had Cole fall through the earth (another nod to Tomb Raider 1!), gone through at least a hundred environmental objects I want to grab on to, etc.
- Side mission variety. I won't go over this one again.
Fortunately, the fights are satisifying (when you're not being cheaped to hell), the platforming exhilarating (when it works), the characters were thought about very well (albeit sometimes a bit on the annoying side), and the story is superb.
I'd say the reviews got it right. 9 is about right.
