I may not have disliked the game quite as much as you did, Snake, but for the most part, I agree.

The game's pacing is pretty bad. It dragged until the last few screens at Hobb's place where it at last started to feel like a Broken Sword game to me.

The dialogue wasn't witty but it was repetitive. If George told you something once, you could bet he'd tell you again. The conversations with the waiter and the gardener were really inane and advanced the plot only in the sense that one got you a cup of coffee and the other an opened door. But you suffered through some idiotic dialogue to get them. And why was there such a long pause between question and answer? It was particularly noticeable when George was talking to Laine though it happened often enough with other characters.

Backgrounds are really nice, really well done. The 3D characters aren't that bad but they move as if they're on rails and I missed the portraits of BS1's Director's Cut which would have provided the expression that these 3D characters decidedly don't have. Perhaps it's inherent in a 3D character to look wooden but it was odd to see Nico, for instance, staring past Navet when she was talking to him.

Some of the puzzles weren't just easy, they were ridiculous.

The humor is strained (Navet? That business with Moue's little problem? Seriously?) and the voice actors are hit and miss. What's worse...I'm trying to think how to put this...the life just seems to have gone out of the characters.

Take Lady Piermont for instance. She was a total hoot in the original game. Whoever voiced her this time was nowhere near as good or as funny as her predecessor in BS1, which is partly the fault of her lines and partly her delivery, which was more Upstairs/Downstairs than the broad, humorous burlesque on the aristocracy of BS1's Lady P.

I did think Hobbs was good, maybe because he reminded me of Tim Shafer hulking around. He was at least new and fresh, and that's part of what this game lacked, a feeling of freshness. Here we are, chasing down some ancient, lost artifact that endangers the world again with characters that seem tired.

All of which is not to say I won't keep playing. The background graphics are a treat and I'm interested to know where the story leads. But I'm no longer expecting a game that knocks your socks off.

Yes, those characters have not a "soul". They are just actors playing Broken Sword :(

As good a way of putting it as any, Snake. Fleur is just a lump. Nico doesn't impress me as the very feminine, bright and self-sufficient woman she was in BS1 and 2. Ultar was a shriek but so far there's nothing like him or Pearl and Duane. There's nothing like the dialogue which was risqué in places in BS1 but very funny and not forced. And George, we didn't need to be told that the replacement for the mildly menacing oddball Inspector Rosso is an idiot (and nowhere near as interesting). All of the secondary characters were caricatures before; now they're much duller and the...well, as you say, soul...has gone out of them.

Seems to me that Revolution tried too hard to please the fans and blew it.

Yes, agree with you totally.

I have to agree. Story isn't really thrilling, Characters are too flat, Dialogues too short and riddles too simple (2 of them were very embarrassing!). I still enjoyed Episode 1, but to be honest: i expected more... (but less fanservice).

When i remember Broken Sword 1, where you have to call dressmaker Todrick and try him to help you by making him a bad conscience with a "Plantard-Family-Story" ... xD Episode 1 is miles away from dialogues like this.
Episode 1 feels like they did only the bare necessities cause of time pressure and money.

Graphics are ok, but i like the old art-style from 1 and 2 much more.