No worries!
not much different than Painkiller's pre-level screen for example
I've never played it, so I could just be putting expectations on the game that aren't fitting with your vision because of my own inexperience
I played through from where I left off to the end just because I didn't want to leave the boat dead weight comment out there if it was going to bother you and I wasn't 100% sure of it and... the latter zones don't really feel like they're about the boat much at all, so I'm not sure if it's really how I feel
But I know I enjoyed the boat in the earlier demos, maybe because (in my recollection) it didn't always feel like you were always trapped in a small area with the boat and were forced to get off to solve the area before you just ride it to the next zone.
Having played more I still feel there are too many ambushes. The cheiftain zone didn't feel well designed because of how much you could solve by sniping. I must have missed something because I walked around a lot at the transmission tower but couldn't find a way up and just hopped up the side of the tower
The bosses weren't bad, though maybe a bit repetitive. I got the feeling the optimal way to beat the elephant was to lure it to crash into stuff, but I didn't do that since it didn't take much more than circle strafing
Also the sound effects are super bass-y. I got the healing perk first thing,so I'm not sure if it was the sound of healing or the melee attack hit, but every time I landed a melee hit it sounded to me like I was the one who got hit with a thud
The acid explosion perk was annoying because I would start bouncing whenever I took damage - I'm sure I could have respecced but I forgot
And I didn't get the point of the inventory