Nice graphics but boring premise and illogical puzzles offsets the game.
(1) Engaging story that holds the players attention.
(2) Interesting and rewarding puzzles are a well integrated in to the story and logical to work out (reasonable difficulty).
(3) Good graphics and sound to set up the atmosphere and immerse the player.
Few games hit the mark on all 3 counts. (One recent one that came close in my humble opinion was Still Life which I highly recommend). Syberia doesn't.
I guess how engaging a story is depends much on personal liking, but for me, I find the story sweet but ultimately dull .... why would the lead character go through all that trouble ... is she doing it for herself or as an act of kindness ? This is not really explained.
I have to confess I quitted roughly 10 hours into the game. Some of the puzzles are simply illogical and tedious. The ones in the monastery makes very little sense and are counterintuitive. (Spoiler * - for instance, If I wanted to burn some tribal herbs to create medicinal fumes, I would just burn the herbs along with the other ingredients directly, and I am sure that's what the natives do too. Having to make candles out of them is counterintuitive and illogical)
I really want to like this game, but unfortunately, I simply cannot afford the patience the sit through this, spending hours working on puzzles that cannot be solved by logic and advancing a story that does not hold my interest.