Honestly tho... was it really a sandbox? or we're just doing it to hush2 some weird troll lol
I mean, he certainly has some kind of complaining/anti-sandbox fetish, but it's not totally wrong. Sure, it's not very sandboxy as most people would understand it, given that the stories remain pretty linear most of the time and I'd say it's a case where both solutions would be fine.
If you really love real sandbox games you won't be happy with it, if you hate them, you won't be either. It's a general problem with tags, since there a few situations where everybody will be satisfied.