Fun for a while, but not done quite right.
The controls are great. Jumping, climbing, running, and flying all work smoothly and responsively. The combat controls may take some getting used to though. You can dodge, block, and attack like in any other game as well as use special telekenesis and charge moves. Since the game doesn't give a very in depth tutorial or explanation of the combat, you need to figure out everything yourself, which can be hard. There's a decent amount of different attacks to use, but combat still seems dull. Around the beginning the combat is fun though. You get more damage and moves from killing enemies, but you only get 4 more moves past the original set. Once you get them, combat is more of a chore than entertainment. You get different elemental weapons to use, but unless you're fighting an enemy with a weakness the only reason to use a parrticular weapon would be the charge up technique, which is unique to each weapon. Other than that, all the weapons are the same. The main reason for acquiring new weapons is for them to be used as keys to move on. An elemental weapon will unlock the corresponding elemental door. Once your realize that's all they're for, the whole excitement of getting more weapons and proceeding farther in the game in general will be less fun. You can predict every new step that doesn't have to do with the story.
Throughout the game, you will switch between playing as Kain, the vampire and Raziel, the wraith. Both play nearly exactly the same. As both characters you will explore different sections of the game to learn more about the story. Most of what the characters learn is from paintings. Since everything was prohpecized hundreds of years beforehand when the paintings were made, you get a feeling of something going on that no one could possibly know about. It adds to the games feel that everything has been predicted. You will find yourself wondering if anyone has true freewill that has not been conducted or prohecized by the tyranous stars.
It's hard to say this is a puzzle game. It feels like it's a puzzle game with fighting and exploring thrown in, but it doesn't play that way. What the player thinks are puzzles are just the player not noticing what the developers meant to be obvious. You probably smack yourself in the face several times because you just noticed the pretty rock on the ground the 26th time you passed it without realizing it. What are puzzles are actually just acquiring another key to unlock something. The challenge of the true puzzles are only evident while playing as Raziel. Raziel can switch back and forth between the real and ethereal dimensions. In the ethereal dimension, things are more distorted and screwed up and Raziel can walk through fence like doors. You can go straight to the ethereal realm any time you want, but going to the real world requires you to find a buried body to use as a beacon back to the real world. You will be required to go back and forth between realms to get through areas and sometimes it will really chop up gameplay. You will need to spend far too long on one area becuase you can't figure out what you need to do.
The graphics aren't anything special.They are detailed and well done, but so gothic that any awe you had by the graphics is erased by emo-ness. The other reason is even if the graphics were powerful, the game is extremely gothic looking. Any happiness you would've gotten from looking at pretty graphics would've been offset by the amazingly depressing scenery. The voice-overs are done well though. All the words match up and all voices match the character they play and the dark feel of the game.
You can think of this game like a snake. It's quick, responsive, and smooth. The slick gameplay is good at face value, but slows down a lot and gets somewhat boring after it gets hit over and over again. There is really no reason to pick this game up vs something else. 6.7 out of 10.