From what I've read, the first arc of Higurashi seemed better done than the first of Umineko's, adaption wise. They cut a lot of character development and emotion out of Umineko's first arc so far, while Higurashi's was left MOSTLY intact.
But Umineko on the whole has a lot less 'filler' scenes like Higurashi's club games.
It's mostly the later arcs that get a LOT of complaining about being a bad adaption for Higurashi.
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