I am a dev (although I have not made a game <yet>) and I have to say that it is tempting to play with things and finding new ways and technologies to do certain things, but in this case I think that this has gotten in the way of the story as a whole. I honestly loved this game in its first iteration. Second one was "OK" this one just seems clunky and doesn't have the "Corruption" piece that was there in the first one. The build to the decadence is what made the first iteration better than all the rest. Now you just give a gift and get fucked... sort of "Meh" now.