Why Limbo didn't work for me (spoilers)

Limbo is a platforming puzzle game, much like Braid or Portal.  Braid was the first game that ever treated time rewind as an ability to do more than rewind your own death.  Allowing you to rewind and fast-forward at will and without limits is a gameplay mechanic that had never been seen before.  Likewise, Portal also brought something completely new to the table.  
 
Limbo brings almost nothing new to the table.  Some variation of nearly every puzzle has been seen before in other games.  Creeping along with the analog stick so someone doesn't notice you until you're right next to them, jumping over giant buzz saws, balancing on top of a large boulder as you roll it over a pit of spikes, flipping gravity so you can walk on the ceiling, boxes, switches, buttons, electrified sections of floors and walls, rotating rooms, and the list goes on.  Hell, this game even has a MINE CART sequence for crying out loud!  We've done this before.   
 
What begins promisingly as a series of completely organic environmental puzzles eventually degrades into convoluted puzzles concerning gravity manipulation.  While early on there seems to be other people who might have some answers, or at least a motive for their violent treatment of you, they're soon replaced by cold, lifeless machinery.  My hope for a deeper plot that explained more about the world itself--and the reason for the the events that take place in Limbo--was almost completely dashed.   And before you ask, yes, I did "get" the ending.
 
What Limbo does it does do well, but what it does has been done well before.  Personally, I feel that while it's a darn good game, it's also the most overrated game I've played in years.

I liked this game a whole lot, but I'll give you that when it started getting all gravity manipulation stuff it put me a little off.  Spider and head worms were damn fun though. 

I disagree with all of this.
 
Also, saying that you did get the ending only shows that you didn't get the game at all - because there is nothing really "to get". Like the whole game, the ending is open for interpretation. The most common, of course, is that both the boy and his sister are dead, hence the name of the game.

the game was not very good... taking out the color and music from a game does not make it "good" or "artful", its just a lazy move.
 
the game is not very good, it really doesnt do anything.
 
I havent seen anything so stupid pass for art since john cage's 4'33''. 
 
"Yo man, you have to look at the platforms hes not jumping!"

 
@SpaceInsomniac:
I partially agree with this. 
I'm finding the reviews circulating; especially the Eurogamer review are actually making me think negatively of this game. It's been hyped to the max, had it's 'philosophical interpretation' shoved around the internet (when I'm not entirely sure there was much of an intended one) and although it looks good, plays well, and sounds fantastic, it's no 'masterpiece' in my eyes. 
It slightly looses its way towards the later half of the game and goes from physics based tactile gameplay to, yeah, variations of things that we're somewhat familiar with. Also, it's mechanical machinery more than creepy forest more often than I would like. Ya dig?
I still really like this game, but I get the feeling it could have been a lot more. 
 
Hey 'it's no Braid'.  
 
@CptBedlam: I get the feeling that this is what he 'got'. That it was open for interpretation. But, I might be wrong and we may never know.  

"I disagree with all of this.

It starts out about being one thing, and then tells you to forget all that--just go find your sister, bud. "

" the game was not very good... taking out the color and music from a game does not make it "good" or "artful", its just a lazy move.

@Tsukiyomi, do you even know what a narrative is? 
Everything has one. Otherwise nothing would be happening at all. 
 
You are a child discovering a world, all you have is yourself, and you are always in control. That is the narrative. It’s the mechanics of how the story will be expressed as you work your way through the game.

Now, in the first half, as said, you are slowly uncovering the grounds of the place you had woken up in. The world is dangerous, you learn to trust nothing, and as you head on your way the environment slowly reveals a subtle backstory. Everything begins to develop around you. Technology is slowly becoming richer, you discover an aggressive race of people; later, you realize this race of people are not only out to get you, but, perhaps any outsiders. Meaning there are even more people in this world. A third party. 

Then finally you come across a girl…

Now the narrative changes. You are no longer discovering this world, in fact, you’re supposed to forget about all that. The developers were too lazy to further any historical development on the world. Now you have to go find that girl because, based on the mechanics of the game, you know you are drawn to her.

So then you play with gravity and gears till you do a slow-motion ragdoll and find her.

 
That doesn’t make sense. 
What happened to everything else in the narrative?

" @CptBedlam: thanks for the spoiler tag .......jerk. "

"Now the narrative changes. You are no longer discovering this world, in fact, you’re supposed to forget about all that. The developers were too lazy to further any historical development on the world. Now you have to go find that girl because, based on the mechanics of the game, you know you are drawn to her."

" @Tsukiyomi: And don't imply the narrative is inexistant by placing your own sarcastic quotations around it. That'd be pretty damn insulting to the developers. "

" @Tsukiyomi: Tell me, what was the second-half of the game about, then?

I really don't get the appeal of this game. It seems to just be another platformer with some puzzle elements. All it has in it is just a different art style and "gory" moments. Now I really appreciate art style. If you know me personally, I will vouch for any new form of art style to the death. But the game wrapped around it has to have some type of substance. I'm not sure what substance there is here. Atmosphere maybe, and while I really enjoy very atmospheric pieces, I'm not sure what else is so special about this game that puts it on a Braid level.

@Tsukiyomi, 
 There's a narrative. There is a very clear narrative to the game. It's not confusing whatsoever. 
 It's just broken in two halves, with very little to keep common with each other.
 
You're progressing through that strange, almost alien-like environment till you see the girl. The game shows you there is something different about her. She's bathed in light and acts completely unaggressive. When the world prevents you from getting near her, you assume your new goal is to come in contact with her. From that point on, the environment loses its subtle tale and you only have the one driving force. 
 
You can't say the first half of the narrative wasn't leading up to something that never continued through.

You can't say that the second half of the game wasn't solely about finding that girl. That's all there was.

 Braid was the first game that ever treated time rewind as an ability to do more than rewind your own death.  Allowing you to rewind and fast-forward at will and without limits is a gameplay mechanic that had never been seen before.

" @SpaceInsomniac said:

 Braid was the first game that ever treated time rewind as an ability to do more than rewind your own death.  Allowing you to rewind and fast-forward at will and without limits is a gameplay mechanic that had never been seen before.

What about Timeshift? "

" @TheSeductiveMoose said:

" @SpaceInsomniac said:

 Braid was the first game that ever treated time rewind as an ability to do more than rewind your own death.  Allowing you to rewind and fast-forward at will and without limits is a gameplay mechanic that had never been seen before.

What about Timeshift? "

Timeshift allows you to play for 20 minutes and then rewind EVERYTHING you've done up until that point? "

Ok, people are trying way too hard to see something that isn't there in Limbo.
 
I loved it, but I hated that pretentious garbage that was Braid.

" @CptBedlam: thanks for the spoiler tag .......jerk. "

Agree with the OP entirely.  The puzzle platforming elements were nothing groundbreaking, and the developers took a cool, creepy sense of style and did absolutely nothing with it.  In the end it made the game feel very well-done, but very shallow.
 
The ending for me is the only interesting thing up for interpretation.  The entire rest of the game just felt like a few creepy setpieces to start and then a bunch of disjointed elements entirely designed to serve the game mechanics.  I kept waiting for it to develop things more, but it never happened.  There's no meat there for you to interpret why this world is the way it is, what the other children are doing and why they're trying to kill you, why you're going through these environments specifically or what they signify, or what any of the other creatures are all about. 
 
I ended up with a lot of questions raised over the course of the game, and there wasn't even an attempt to answer any of them.  And worse, I don't think the developers had any intended interpretation for the vast majority of the game.

I thought the puzzles were pretty clever. I mean they weren't on Braid level, but they were still devious at times. I enjoyed solving them and the gravity stuff was fun and difficult. I think the whole game looked great. The industrial area at the end wasn't as impressive as the first 2/3 of the game, but I still liked it. As for the story, (SPOILER) I think that you are to believe they are dead and forever going through Limbo over and over. The whole game is about finding your sister, so I don't see how the story changes. Personally I think the game is great. Not as good as Braid but still great.

I loved the art, the depth of all those silhouettes. But I also ended up being disappointed in the value. In as complex and interesting as the games puzzles are, it also doesn't give you nearly enough to justify the price in my opinion. Whether we admit it or not value is a part of the games we buy. For my own money, I would have preferred seeing two movies at random in a theater and watch somebody else play this game on the internet. I still love how the game looks. You can take a picture from any part of the game and it looks like it belongs in a darn frame.

Agreed on the dependence on gravity manipulation.  In general, I lean towards puzzles where you find a logical path through the rules that that the puzzle confines you to rather than obstacles that require good reflexes.  That being said though, what the game does with gravity manipulation is pretty decent in my book.
 
Also, I think the OP's complaint that the whole game consist of "been there, done that" ideas is unecessary.  You can take apart any particular puzzle piece and trace it back to another game.  But does that take away from how well it was executed in this game?  Despite these puzzle mechanics being seen in games made prior, I think the general consensus is that the Limbo is sufficiently difficult.  Not to mention that when you look at Limbo as a whole, the game is quickly identifiable next the flood of downloadable titles.