Started playing LIMBO thinking I was diving into a mysterious, artsy platformer. First half was promising. Creepy woods. Giant spider, and some sketchy shadow kids trying to murder me. “Cool,” I thought. “There’s lore in this game. Maybe I’ll uncover something big.”

Then halfway through everything starts losing potential, it’s just me, boxes, levers, and my eternal enemy: gravity. The mysterious enemies vanish like my patience. Puzzles stop feeling clever and start feeling like unpaid internships in frustration. Everything starts to feel like a big chore. And don’t get me started on the brain worms, those things hijack your controls like your little brother grabbing the controller mid-fight. Past this point in the game it only gets worse.

At some point, I stopped playing to enjoy the game, and started playing to end the game. Every death means a 7-second timeout (respawn time) like you’re a toddler who touched the stove. You stare at a screen. Nothing happens. You reflect your life choices and the fact that you missed a jump because a rope was one pixel too far.

And sure, checkpoints do exist, but sometimes you die right at the end of a chapter and it pulls you back five minutes. LIMBO isn’t long, but it feels long when you’re redoing the same sequence over and over like it’s Groundhog Day: Shadow Edition.

By the final stretch, I was watching walkthroughs just to finish the game. Not because I was stumped, because I was done. Done dragging boxes, done with puzzles that only make sense in hindsight, and so done with getting crushed by a gear I didn’t know existed because the screen is darker than my will to keep playing.

Yes, the atmosphere is top tier. Sound design? Haunting and brilliant. But that’s like serving a gourmet meal on a table that collapses every five minutes.

LIMBO is beautiful, but it hides a soul-crushing grind behind its silhouette art. It wants to be poetic, but ends up feeling like an edgy platformer with commitment issues.

I wanted mystery. I got misery.
Great vibes. Bad time.
3/10. Would rather let the game’s brain worm control my life than replay this. (Ngl he would be better at controlling it than me)
The first half of LIMBO is pretty promising few examples are these: nice environment, mysterious creatures, and multiple suggestion of hidden lore. There’s a bit tension and curiosity. But halfway in, it all goes away. All enemies that were shown during the gameplay disappear, the world loses its mysterious part, and the game turns into repetitive puzzles. The brain worm mechanic, which disables forward / backward movement, is time wasting mechanic, it becomes more annoying than intresting and it appears multiple times.
LIMBO feels like its trying to hide its limited content with extended playtime with things like: long respawn time (around 7 seconds) which adds unnecessary downtime, especially when it comes to trial-and-error sequences. Checkpoints that are far away sometimes forcing you to replay minutes of content after a single mistimed jump. It starts feeling more like filler than thoughtful design. Im not saying the content is limited but this just makes me feel like it is. For example, you struggle to get past a specific point in a chapter and you finally succeed, but then, near the end, you get crushed by a box because you mistimed your jump or the controls were too lazy to work. Then you have to go through all that struggle again, and this can happen multiple times in one chapter in the same place, forcing you to repeat the same thing a hundred times.
Most puzzles are based on trial and error. Few offer the satisfaction of a well planned solution. Instead, you’ll die multiple times learning the “gotcha” tricks before executing them with perfect timing. It becomes tedious fast.
Around 75% into the game, the repetitiveness outdoes any remaining charm. The puzzles stop being creative and start feeling like chores. At this point, walkthroughs felt like a necessity not for difficulty, but because I just wanted to be done.

• More story beats – Give us something. Even subtle environmental storytelling or shadowy flashbacks could’ve made the world feel alive for longer. That giant spider? The weird shadow kids? Please bring them back later. Tie them to something. Anything.
  
• Smarter Puzzles, Not Harder Ones – Less “gotcha” and more “aha.” Let the player feel clever, not punished. A good puzzle makes you think, not rage quit.
  
• Less time wasting – If you’re going to kill me 47 times in one section, at least don’t make me wait 7 seconds everytime you do. That’s over 5 minutes of my life I’m not getting back.
  
• More Enemies– LIMBO started strong with enemies at first that felt like real threats. Why abandon them? Even one or two new types later on could’ve kept the tension alive.
  
• Better Pacing – Not all moment needs to be a puzzle. Mix in more tension, more danger, more mystery. Make us want to see what’s next, not dread it.

• Visuals that slap: The monochrome style, the silhouettes, the lighting — it’s genuinely gorgeous. LIMBO could hang in an art gallery and no one would question it.
  
• Sound design is immaculate: Creaks, whispers, distant rumbles — everything sounds exactly how existential dread should sound.
  
• Strong opening: The first third of the game had me hooked. I wanted to know where I was, what the spider wanted, and why shadow kids were trying to unalive me.

• Puzzles that feel like unpaid internships: Half the time you’re solving stuff not with logic, but with sheer repetition and suffering.
  
• Vanishing mystery: Every cool enemy or world element is front-loaded. The second half drops it all like a hot box.
  
• Padding, padding, padding: That respawn delay? The redoing of entire sections because of one mistimed input? It’s not adding depth — just dragging things out.
  Tonal Flatline in the Second Half
  
• LIMBO starts with horror, tension, and urgency — and ends with you dragging a crate onto a button for the fifth time in a row.
  
• Puzzle Design Punishes Curiosity
  Try exploring? You die. Test a switch? You die. Wait too long to jump? You guessed it — you die. It trains you to stop experimenting and just play it safe, which is the opposite of what a puzzle platformer should do.

• The mechanic that hijacks your controls like a bad roommate with your Netflix password.
  It shows up too often, overstays its welcome, and only serves to stretch out the game time. It’s not challenging in a fun way. (Yes I had to make separate category for ts)

The atmosphere is excellent. LIMBO nails its look and sound design. Unfortunately, those elements aren’t enough to carry the game when its core gameplay starts to drag.
LIMBO is a game for those who don’t mind discomfort, not just from its eerie atmosphere, but from its slow, repetitive, often unrewarding gameplay. It’s for players drawn to mood over momentum, who can sit with ambiguity and find beauty in frustration. If you need clear goals, evolving mechanics, or satisfying payoffs, this might not be your game. LIMBO doesn’t guide, explain, or often reward, it just is.
LIMBO is stunning to look at and amazing in atmosphere, but it stumbles hard when it comes to gameplay. The game begins as a mysterious, moody journey turns into a repetitive slog of trial-and-error puzzles and drawn-out platforming. It hints at depth but never delivers, leaving you with more frustration than fulfillment.

It is beautiful, sure - but beautiful doesn’t always mean worth it.

3/10 — Gorgeous, but ultimately empty.