Pantasmagoria sort of represents the dead end of FMV games in my opinion. To me, as a game it's alright and the presentation is top notch. However it defiantly shows the limitations of making FMV games. The result of all of the effort involved just isn't justified. The story is relatively good, but I think it could have been better if the game was more interactive instead of point-click-watch cutscene. I understand that with adventure games you can't give too much control to the player but Phantasmagoria just feels incredibly restrictive.
Overall I'd still give it 4/5 if only for the novetly and effort put in.

Well BOO FUCKING HOO.
You don't like games.

Someone is touchy about a certain game *laughs*

It is a pretty bad game. Probably was notable back when it was released but now it's just awful.

Maybe it was because this sort of genre (the adventure game genre) was almost all that my PC gaming days consisted of in the 90's, but I never really had a problem with the things being mentioned in that first post.
The Number of CDs - Riven had 5 CDs and was a freaking awesome game with wonderful acting, dialogue, and storyline. The number of CDs shouldn't even be considered an issue. Remember that at the time, they were handling a LOT of huge data and files before we got better compression technology.
Time it Takes to Finish - Wow, 3 hours huh? Were you using a guide or something? I stopped to explore everything I could, talk to all the people, really soak up the atmosphere in the game. It musta taken me at least 2 days to get to the end of it.
Not Difficult - Really? That's odd, because to this day I've never been able to get the proper ending in Chapter 7 or see all the hidden stuff like finding the dead bodies.
No logic - I dunno, I found a lot of it to be fairly logical. Not EVERYTHING was, mind you, and this was something that most games of the genre regardless of FMV or animated had in common. I never saw it as a negative aspect. It just usually required someone to think outside the box, and that was part of the reason I played games like this.
What drew me to this game wasn't the horror elements, it was the storyline, the characters, the little town with its history, the music... I don't think the acting is all that bad. It's bettet than Saw and a lot of other horror genre movies (which always seem to have bad acting, like it's required or something).
As for GK2.. heh, I loved that game. Had a better ending than the third one.. seriously, I LIKED GK3, but the ending was ambiguous and disappointing. Insofar as Phantasmagoria is concerned on endings.. yeah, the game does have a downer ending from what I've heard. But most of these kinds of stories do, sadly. I honestly think it woulda been interesting if there'd been a way to save the husband and get out alive. Poor girl..

I HEARD THAT, RED_AVATAR!
sorry, couldn't resist :)

Yes, I think not being difficult isn't bad, and appeals to a broader audience, indeed. I get more upset (upsetter?) with non-sense puzzles that block the story (like Gabriel Knight's Sins of The Fathers, for instance) than with "too easy" adventure games.
Maybe there's still audience for this kind of interaction today, browser based games like phantasmagoria would be much more interesting than what you see at Kongregate or Newgrounds (shouldn't I say the word fl*sh?)
In other words, Phantasmagoria for me is in a subgenre, kind of an interactive story.
But I like it.
BTW, I got stuck in chapter 1 and had to appeal to the hints, it's not thaaat easy.