An interesting idea for an article absolutely ruined by poor criticism and writing.
The idea that you shouldn't be able to predict a story or else it's bad is an awful mindset to have, and such a surface level criticism that it brings doubt to everything else the author critiques.
I'm not a huge fan of ND (I've liked 2 of their games from the last two gens) but it seems pretty clear that the author doesn't look beyond the most basic aspects of gameplay unless engaged, which is awful when you're trying to compare good and bad.
LoU for example may not be particularly deep or complex in mechanics, but it certainly didn't play like an average action game (something that should be readily apparent even on normal difficulties and above). Everything from movement to aiming to recoup and fire rate were designed to determine the pace of combat, and limit player power and options.
Compare it to Uncharted 2, where Nathan is significantly more agile, precise, has more ammo etc.
The author clearly doesn't have the ability to really dissect games that they didn't enjoy, and as a result the entire piece is about as shallow as the "prestige" games they discuss are.
This again is a real shame, because I do feel there's a trend of AAA games tending to be wide as an ocean but shallow as a puddle mechanically speaking, but if you let bias influence your analysis to this degree then why even bother?
