Just thinking out loud here, but part of the reason for the frustration may be that the devs' past work has been in comics, where shifts in perspective and setting are quite natural since you're (generally) not expected to identify with any particular protagonist. But in a game, where you're roleplaying the main character, scenes that don't involve the MC (or only exist in the MC's imagination) just feel like so much dead air.
I don't need the MC to immediately become omnipotent ruler of all he surveys, slow build-ups are fine, I just want him to at least be involved in the story (preferably showing a bit of backbone). The scenes in the past and the various fantasy scenes would work just fine in a comic, but feel out of place in a game (to me, anyway). Hopefully this will even out as the main story picks up a bit.