Crystal Dynamics: Where is Tomb Raider and what have you done to it?

I appreciate that the Tomb Raider series might not be everyone's cup of tea, so the following might not be remotely relatable for you. But for someone who's quite a fan of the series, Crystal Dynamics really dropped the ball in this 2013 reboot that's just been released. Particularly when this is the developer who did TR Legend, Anniversary and Underworld (three good games). I find it egregious enough to make a thread about it, anyway.

I've got nothing against introducing change into a 17-year-old series, so long as it's for the better and it doesn't supplant certain mechanics, qualities and tropes that function perfectly well and don't need fucking around with. Admittedly I've only played through the first few levels of this, but most of the gameplay thus far has consisted of an endless succession of quick time events and awkward camera angles. This is not the Tomb Raider I first experienced in 1996. It's barely recognisable as a Tomb Raider game - nay, video game.

There's puzzles - the defining feature of the series, love them or loathe them - but they're so dumbed down there might as well be a "Press X to set fire to Y so Z falls down so you can continue" message on the screen every time you approach something intriguing. Is the average gamer's attention span so short that they need to be prompted and reminded what to do every time the remotest semblance of a challenge is presented to them?

Shooting things has never been the series' strong point, but the action is serviceable at least. Not giving Lara a pair of handguns as her default weapon and replacing them with a makeshift bow is an interesting idea. It would take a lot more than that to win me over, though. The hub-like level layout would be cool, were it not for the fact I couldn't give a shit what lies beyond a given cave entrance that I might come across, because I'm just not invested in the game. Not yet, anyway.

Maybe it will grow on me if/when I force myself to play through it some more. But it's not looking good.

Reminds me of the "Don't forget to reload, dr. Freeman!" in HL2. I wanted the game to stop automatically reloading my weapons when I was not using them.

Well, I've only played the first Tomb Raider. Got somewhere near the end, but then I got stuck in some puzzle about some lava or spikepit and some rolling boulders. Now I'd probably figure it out if I decided to start playing it again.

I just saw some pic of the new Lara in a games magazine.. her boobs look smaller. It's also got some article about every Tomb Raider game so far.