I'm currently playing through the Escape of Butcher Bay, and thus far I don't think I've found anything I actually enjoy about this game. How does it have 4.5 stars with over 800 votes?
Also, should I just give up playing on hard? It just feels so awful but I feel like it might not fix the problems I have with stealth anyway.

Yeah, Hard mode is useless and not fun. In the first game the IA in Hard is stupid, and in the second game, the last weapon is slow and bad against the IA. And do not forget the stealth (ewww).

I can recognize the efforts of Vin Diesel of putting his resources for making the Riddick's franchise. But still, the history is not better than the original movies trilogy.

I'm my humble opinion, this is a game of not more 3 stars.