It's not a complaint, it's criticism. Take the scene I mentioned before for example:I feel like The Raven is one of the best adventure game in years. I'm honestly not sure I understand the complaint about "the direction".
The way I see it, the story is interesting, the voice acting is really goddamned good for a German game, the puzzles rarely frustrate, and the production values are better than I expect from modern adventure games. And the main character is objectively awesome.
They are stuck in a tunnel after an explosion, everyone could die within the next seconds but there's never any feeling of urgency or panic. You calmly walk around the train, talk to another passenger for, like, two minutes, and the solution to get out of there is basically: Build a torch!
The direction is all over the place and for the most part it's because of the bad production values. This is another German adventure game created by, like, three people with a ridiculously low budget and it shows. They have to skip or work around important parts of the story because they just can't show them and they make almost no use of the 3D engine.
Take the scene in the museum for example, in which Zellner watches the video tape and instead of actually showing the damn thing he has to explain everything he's seeing because they probably couldn't afford it. Or the torch light in the cellar.
The puzzles never frustrate because the number of locations and items is pretty small but some puzzles still make no sense whatsoever.
The huge metal door in the museum can be opened by a flagpole and some other piece of wood?
Don't get me wrong, this could be a good adventure game and I loved Agatha Christie's novels as a child, but its low production values and its general laziness bother me way too much to enjoy it.