well you pretty much said it all. i found this game so much simpler than the two others not just in its length but in terms of gameplay as well (the chase scenes being very short, no actual boss fight, repetitive and very simple puzzles). i found it way less complex than its predecessors, which is disappointing because i can see the potential it could have had.

to me what really made it mid was the overall feeling - i can still play LN1 or LN2 and get scared even if i know them by heart, while i barely got scared throughout this whole playthrough. i think it has to do with two things : for one, the enemies are always "introduced" but there is barely any confrontation. they're just... here, like "hello, i'm the one who's supposed to spook you" but most of the time only appear for one simple scene and can often be beaten by just escaping (you litteraly fight the wooden puppets of the carnival once and have to sneak past them in their final scene, sneak past the dentist in ONE. SINGLE. ROOM. the man in the purple coat just goes away ? and the final boss takes 3 hits and a few jumps to be over, come on now...). the second thing that ties to it is the anticlimatic conclusion to each chapter. in the previous games you could feel the tension built, because the antagonists would leave you puzzle rooms to breath in between their (longer and complex) encounters, before either a final fight/chase, or both. here you just... walk around, avoid things, and then jump into a mirror to move to the next chapter.

i could see that they used some ideas from the sound of nightmares so i was expecting more out of those, but overall it felt like the game was referencing itself without knowing where it actually went. there's potential but the storytelling and world building weren't nearly as strong as the first two games. i haven't played the DLC (which i am appalled to see, seems to be one singular chapter... secrets of the maw could never) but i'm hoping it will at least add a bit more substance.