Good and bad points
At first I thought it was. While it looks really good, the controls are unresponsive, Lara is cumbersome and difficult to manoeuvre, plus the camera angles are really weird and not helpful to gameplay. In time though I got used to this and am glad that I persevered through those early troubles.
OK, so the positive elements of the game. Well, it looks a lot better than any of its predecessors. When Chronicles was released it looked pretty bad in comparison to other games released at the time, and made it clear that Tomb Raider had fallen behind the times. Thankfully, Angel of Darkness is a massive graphical step forward. Everything looks smoother and more detailed, environments are realistic, and the characters are attractive.
The sound is also very good. The background music is appropriate (though could be used a little more often), the voice acting is generally good, and the sound effects are accurate. Occasionally I encountered bugs where the sound would cut out, though these were rectified by loading a previous save game. These were the only bugs I encountered in the game as a whole.
The plot is also a major strength of AoD. This is comfortably the best Tomb Raider plot, featuring occult artifacts, horrific murders and centuries-old secret societies. The plot was the only thing that kept me persevering through the early stages of the game - it sucked me in and I was keen to find out the next twist! Being critical, maybe the plot makes a few large jumps and could do with being padded out a little more. Plus, it is way too short - the game took me three weeks to complete, and I was on holiday for two of them.
There are some major weaknesses though. Most notable is the control. Tomb Raider games are known for requiring precise jumps and complex sequences of manoeuvres, AoD is no different. This becomes very difficult when Lara handles as badly as she does in this game. It is almost impossible to line up jumps, Lara has a habit of misbehaving and doing different things to what you thought she was going to do, and some controls seem to work intermittently (such as sidestepping, which is only prohibited when the game chooses, otherwise is replaced by useless rotating on the spot. I can find no logic behind the occasional inability to sidestep).
The camera angles are also abysmal, with the camera changing between the standard third person and a fixed side on camera at awkward moments. We got an occasional taster for this in Chronicles, but in AoD it is happening all the time. I cannot stress enough how annoying this is. Also the camera has a tendency to really screw up when Lara is backed against a wall, occasionally offering a rather disturbing view from inside her head, or else a piece of wall, or a seemingly disembodied arm, etc. The camera and the controls really detract from this game as they take away from the flow and fluidity of moving Lara through the environments.
Another criticism is the difficulty. Aside from the control issues when performing jumps, the game is remarkably easy. The progression through levels is obvious, switches and levers are easy to find, the enemies are weak, and even all the bosses only required one attempt. I finished the game with a wealth of unspent ammo and health packs. While some of the other Tomb Raiders have suffered for being too difficult, AoD goes the other way and is for the most part too easy. The only difficulty comes from the awkward controls and occasionally because a puzzle requires Lara to perform an action that she was never able to perform in previous Tomb Raiders and that this game never informs you is now possible.
The game introduces a few new elements into the mix, but for the most part these are surplus to requirements. Dialogue with characters has some interactive elements, though which option you choose doesn't make much of a difference to the outcome of the conversation. Lara now has a stealth mode, which is pointless aside from the rather nifty commando crawl that she can perform as part of it. Also, there is a new playable character - Kurtis Trent, who you use for three of the twenty nine levels. Kurtis is pretty similar to Lara, although he is even more slow and cumbersome. He has one rather strange ability, though other than that (I won't spoil the surprise), he does nothing different to Lara. His existence doesn't really benefit the game, indeed it probably detracts from it as his role is never properly explained, and leaves more unanswered questions for you at the end.
To be honest, the Kurtis issue pretty much sums up the negative elements of the game - its a nice new touch to the series but it isn't explained properly or taken far enough. The games mechanics are different from the previous five, but they are not explained well enough for you to ever get comfortable with them. The game goes in new directions, but it does it in such a half-hearted way that you feel a little unsatisfied with it.
In all, despite the negative elements to AoD, I am glad that I persevered with it until the end. The plot is excellent, the graphics are good (though the movement engine is at times pretty bad - eg when Lara takes backwards steps she looks handicapped), the sound is good, and the game is easy enough to keep you progressing at a reasonable speed. In terms of the camera, the controls, and most of the new gameplay elements, it is a step back from the classic Tomb Raiders (such as The Last Revelation) though. This is a shame, as this could of, and perhaps should of been the best entry in the series.
If you are patient with it, this game will reward you. In its own right it is reasonably good, though as part of the Tomb Raider series it looks very bad. The elements are there for it to be the best in its series, but frankly it is clear that not enough care was taken with the game, meaning that it is probably the worst.