[Quarkboy]

Portal 2 is an amazing game, but I do have 1 criticism of it.

In portal 1 and the first and third sections of portal 2, the tests are contrived areas designed to be "solved" by design, for the most part.

In the final part of portal 1, when you go out of the test chambers, the game definitely feels less "on rails"... For example in the final battle with Glados, the solution feels more "found" and organic. There's a bunch of different ways to get the cores in the fire, etc...

On the other hand, in portal 2 there are large sections which are not "test chambers". Mainly they are sections like the turret factory or getting from sphere to sphere of the retro test chambers, and also the final battle.

However these sections are just as "singular solution" as the sections in the test chambers, if not even moreso! Some of the methods to get up shafts during "the climb" are just ridiculously contrived, where leaks of goo and platforms are placed just in such a way to make proceeding forward possible.
Crucify me if you'd like, but it ruins the _realism_ of the story in my opinion.

The last boss fight is a perfect example of this, where the "randomly" splattered goo is "randomly splattered" in precisely the right places to enable you to reach the targets.