Did you play a retail copy of the game or a reviewers copy? I reviewed the retail one and came across almost none of the problems you described. I'd be interested to hear.
The way time slowed when changing spells was good and the button above the shield button (forget what it is) changed targets... although that big tree guy boss with the spiders and the ice spell is still a pain.
Always interesting reading alternate opinions and I like that you mentioned the graphcis and environments (which I completely neglected :) )
Looks great although I'm looking forward to being able to read old comments. Really defeats the purpose of getting a PM with a response if you can't see the conversation anymore :( Also my blog has comments I can't view.
On that note I also thinks it's a shame to remove the @ + username functionality. The ability to reference someone and know they'll be notified was great. Now if I mention someone I'll have to go and tell them to go to page X and follow the convo. Seems a bit silly.
Chickan_117's comments