The video review over at The Escapist also bitched about the tutorial's structure. FWIW I've always been bothered by storylines that go something like "You are the world's biggest badass, no one has matched your prowess and cunning since age 7... now here's how you fire your bow".
I recall the days of pouring over the manual in the car (because we didn't have handhelds), that was when you memorized all this stuff. When you finally got home to actually play Bard's Tale you already new ARFL cast Arc of Flame and you dreamed of the day you could enter NUKE and cast Armageddon.
I do admit these days are mostly gone, manuals haven't had good stuff in years, so who reads them? If I need info I pull up a wiki page or Youtube video.
I wonder how much of it is actually difficulty and how much is brutally punishing the player for not playing the game as intended, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow did the same, if you didn't block and roll a lot, you died. If you didn't learn to achieve focus on bosses you'd never beat them on anything above easy.
Hiding stuff behind an insane UI is probably not as defensible, though:)