I liked it, overall, and I think it gets maligned a lot more than it deserves. The story is really cool and finding lore details throughout the levels was enjoyable, much like in Control. The big difference is that I just didn't care much for the combat in QB at all, whereas Control is a lot of fun. The live action stuff between playable missions wasn't good, either. It's my least-favorite Remedy game, but I don't think it's a bad game. If you like the storytelling and world-building of other Remedy games, then QB is certainly worth checking out.
I think you're spot-on with all of this. It's less that Remedy "had this planned all along", and more that these were references to the planned story of Alan Wake 2 that are now references to Control because that's the game they ended up making.
(If "AWE" expansion does in fact go in a certain direction where Jesse is necessary in aiding Alan's escape, we could go all meta with it and take it to mean that Remedy needed Control (the game) to bring back Alan Wake (the game/series). In this thread and the Control spoiler thread, I saw some theories floating around about P6/Dylan referring to Project 6/Quantum Break and P7/Jesse referencing Project 7/Control, and how something similar to "AWE" may have been planned as QB DLC but is now coming to fruition as part of Control. Probably overthinking it, but it's fun speculation nonetheless!)
