Putting aside the story and cutscenes argument, which is of course true but discussed to death at this point, you have a couple of good points (OP) but it looks like you were out of your depth playing it on hard.
Most of the complaints come off as someone who isn't simply good enough at the game and should've played on normal or easy.
I mean Last Stand pops up when you're already dead, how can you demand it being more easy, when it's just an extra the game is giving you, and you should already be reloading the last save? the examples of level design are similar, when i plaeyd through the game (multiple times) and looked around, there where almost always places i could "dive to" and form up a strategy to take out some people before others.
One gif with two objects non aligned doesn't mean much, you are supposed to look around and use bullet time and diving at your advantage, not just have the game let you do whatever you want, it would be like a puzzle game accepting any solution you propose.
Animation priority is a good point, but it's also subjective, i don't think every game should handle like Half Life or Quake, this goes for Max Payne 3 as well as Chronicles of Riddick or Mirror's Edge etc etc.
But that's really something subjective, depending on how you feel on the matter.
I like the heavy weight they give the game, since the pacing is not one of a super fast shooter deliberately, Max is a big old dude and you're supposed to plan ahead of time how you're gonna clear a room (also the game doesn't have endless waves of bulletsponge enemies, for this very reason) it's a different pacing from something like, say, Binary Domain (which i also love):
slow movement.
limited slow motion.
few bullets.
few enemies with little health.
slower pace.
versus:
ton of ammunitions.
ton of sponge enemies.
faster pacing.
Also, fantastic hit reaction made it one of the most fun 3rd person shooters i've ever played.
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Then there's the cutscenes problem, and that sucks donkey balls, indeed.
As far as Remedy goes, i love MP1 and 2, although they were fairly different games, but i thought Alan Wake was terribly boring, aside from the decent Twin Peaks storyline.
So i don't they're above failure, unfortunately.
