My opinion is that Transistor suffers from a lack of balance between the planning phase and the real-time phase (note I played on Hard so this probably isn't a problem on Normal). There is not enough to do during the real-time phase, especially when you're recovering. All you can do is run away to not get wrecked. On the flip side, the planning phase is where all the fun comes in (obviously). This leads to a fast alternation of fun and not-fun (because there's not much to do except run away which isn't that difficult) which is bad, ideally you want a flow of fun and less-fun-but-still-fun.
The reason why running away sucks so bad is because enemies have hitscan weapons. Imagine playing Doom (the OG Doom) except every enemy has hitscan shots instead of slow moving projectiles. Not fun is it? That's pretty much what Modern Warfare's campaign is like, a quick alternation between fun (shooting dudes) and not-fun (cowering behind a wall doing nothing so you can regenerate your bullet wounds like a Wolverine). If projectiles were something you can dodge, there would be depth (and fun) during the AP recovery period by dodging enemy attacks, much like a shmup.
