Yeah, I can see what you're saying in terms of gameplay, and I've heard a lot of similar complaints. Honestly though, I didn't mind it. While the vigors weren't a necessity to killing enemies, I still loved that the choice was provided. The game itself was so easy that I kind of just enjoyed taking out the enemies in various ways. And I felt undertow was actually extremely useful if I ever got bogged down at all.

As for the game being linear, wasn't the first one similar to that? It's been a while since I played it but I don't believe it had anything similar to the "sidequests" in Infinite (not to say these were anything substantial, but there was some room to go off the beaten path in this game that I can't really remember in the first game).

I do agree with you about Ryan being more of an interesting villain. At the same time though. Not to say Comstock wasn't interesting, but it's tough to beat Ryan in this regard. And as interesting as the twist was in Infinite, I still feel like the twist in the first game was better, and possibly the best turning point in gaming history. It came totally out of left field for me and managed to be a commentary on the nature of video games in general. It's just tough to equal that.

I have read up a bit on the ending and have heard that theory. It does make a lot of sense. Really impressed with how Levine managed to tie the two games together without it really seeming forced. I really don't think there are any series or games out there that can rival this storytelling ability, along with atmosphere. They really have something going here, and I'm interested to see where they go next, if they do decide to make a new game that isn't simply a rehash like Bioshock 2 was.