• The Overabundance of Cut Scenes - There were sections of this game where gameplay was interrupted every few steps. They might have looked nice, but I didn't find them all that compelling which brings me to...
• The Story - This point may be my own fault for having high expectations, but I read this game was supposed to have a great plot and clever dialogue, what I played had neither. The only thing unique about the narrative of Psychonauts was the aspect of Raz invading people's minds to cure their demons, but to me that just led to a bunch of disjointed levels which didn't seem to fit together. That was also probably my fault because I got bored of  the story pretty quick and wasn't caring why I was jumping from the mind of the Milkman to the Crazy Actress to the Painting Bull. Beyond that its the same derivative "unlikely hero learns powers and saves the day" thing.
• Power & Item Limitations - You learn a bunch of powers as you progress through the game, but you can only equip three of them at a time. If you come to a point you need invisibility to sneak passed an enemy, but you don't have it equipped, you have to hit select, bring up the powers menu and swap out the one you need. Its even more frustrating for the items because you can't hold an item and activate a switch or talk to a NPC. If you put it away to open the door, you have to hit select and pull up the item menu all over again. The lack of a quick select menu that gives you access to all your stuff is disappointing, especially since Ratchet had it 4 years before Psychonauts came out.
• Collecting to Advance - Yes, collecting is part of most platformers, but pretty early in Psychonauts you are forced to walk around the camp with a device that detects arrowheads buried in the ground. You have to collect over 1,000 of these things to buy two items from the store or else you can't advance to the next level. In order to dig these things up I had to mash on a button so hard, I was seriously risking an aneurysm. This was a boring waste of time which was interrupted by more cutscenes as I ran into characters walking around camp.
• Frustrating Sections - I'm not one to shy away from a challenge, but there is a difference between being challenging and being cheap. Getting blown up by exploding mice that constantly respawn on the asylum level. Having to make precise jumps with sloppy, floaty jump controls and when you miss, falling all the way to the bottom of a level only to start all over. Having to protect the kid in the meat circus, but not knowing where he is in the level because he jumped to a platform (in a cutscene) that can't be seen from the platform you are on. A rail slide section with gaps spaced in it that forces you to slow down so you miss the jump or go too fast that you overshoot the next jump combined with the previously mentioned sloppy jump controls.
• Having to Wait to Level Up - If you want to redeem the Psi-Cards, Cobwebs or Brains you pick up mid-level, you have to warp back to HQ then warp back, but instead of taking you back to the exact spot you warped out, you are taken back to the start of the level. That discourages you from actually reaping the rewards of the items you find.

Things I Did Enjoy

• As a fan of Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas & Corpse Bride, I dug the visual style of Psychonauts which seemed to be at least influenced by Burton's work and I think Psychonauts could have been a good animated movie.
• Two of the levels did live up to the hype of being unique and different. The level where Raz is a giant that is stomping around a city environment was a lot of fun to play. You don't normally see that kind of scale in a platformer where the character towers over it's enemies. The other level I enjoyed was the board game level which you play with the Napoleons. Figuring out how to get the pieces on the board and then moving them into the right spots was fun.
• I found the powers varied and useful. Double Fine did a good job of ensuring that you would encounter sections which would require you to use each power you acquire. Setting something on fire with Pyro, bouncing with Levitation (when a precise jump wasn't required), picking up an enemy and tossing it aside with Telekinesis all feels satisfying.
  
  

Unfortunately, on balance, Psychonauts turned out to be a big disappointment to me. It's not an unplayable game, but it is far from the pinnacle of the genre that people make it out to be. Hopefully the cool kids will still let me sit at their table.