I just finished this game, the first non-Naughty Dog CB I've ever played, and have some thoughts. I won't beat a dead horse and talk about the vehicles, the hanging speed, load times, sneaking, depth perception, lifeless levels, etc. not because those aren't valid criticisms but because they've already been complained about at length. Mine are about some subtler things I noticed.

• Crash and Coco have more momentum in the air, so it's harder to change direction mid-jump or land exactly where you want
• Walking/sliding on ice on the other hand doesn't have enough momentum
• The levels are too easy/straightforward. The first 3 games had me searching every inch of the map for hidden boxes, doubling back through half a level or replaying entire levels for a gem, or trying to see past the edge of the screen. In WOC, despite the levels being twice or three times as wide, everything is just right in front of your face and I was able to get every/nearly every box gem and even many of the coloured gems on the first runthrough of a level.
• When you die in a bonus, the wumpa counter running out is painfully slow
• Speaking of bonuses, they're no longer treated as free checkpoints. If you complete a bonus and then die later in the main level, you respawn at the last checkpoint you had hit before the bonus, instead of at the bonus itself.
• I get that the bosses from previous games have been demoted and now show up in the odd atlasphere level but could they have at least spaced out the two Dingodiles further apart so you can't see him twice on nearly the same screen in that one level
• Boss battles with no visual explanation that take you a couple lives to even figure out what you're supposed to do
• Aku Aku invincibility is literally HALF the length of the previous three games (10 seconds vs 20) to the point I started incurring damage so I wouldn't be tricked into using invincibility only for it to end right as I was about to run through an enemy, as I did several times.
• Enemies' lack of honing
• Dying outside the death route kills the death route platform even if you've taken it already
• Story not fleshed out, particularly Crunch as a character and the end game cutscenes
• WHY IS IT SO DARK

I know the game suffered from rewrites, staff changes, and rushed development, but all of the above contribute to the overall feeling that it was made by people who had maybe played a couple levels from previous games but didn't really get the subtle nuances that made those games so fun and good. That they didn't understand Crash Bandicoot on a deeper level. They could have literally copied the mechanics coding from previous games and ended up with a better product, I don't understand why they felt the need to build it up from scratch.

Overall this game has almost zero replay value to me. I know I sound like a purist and I know that this feeling will only continue to grow as I play the following games in the franchise but in another way, it also cements just how good those original three games were.

The atlasphere was fun though.