As compared to year 2, the main environment in year 3 is somewhat smaller; it’s large enough to give you enough places to go to be interesting, but the smaller size means that you’re not constantly traipsing from one end of the level to the other. There are two overarching puzzles instead of three; I actually preferred this amount of parallelism, because I didn’t have to spend as much time worrying about which overarching puzzle each change of state (or item that I can’t yet get or whatever) would fit into. And you have at most three items in your inventory at any given time, which limits the “pick up random item to be used 8 puzzles later” possibilities. (And, as a bonus, means that one item can be the solution to several puzzles, a bit of design that I appreciate.)

Don’t get me wrong, I understand why most people strongly prefer year 2. Rubacava is a lot more interesting than a factory prison, the NPCs in Rubacava have a lot more, well, character, and, if push comes to shove, I’d accept that the year 2 puzzles are a bit better integrated into the environment (and, more interestingly, into the psychology of others) than the year 3 puzzles are.

Having said that, I’m not even convinced that year 3 is such a disaster in terms of narrative: a structure where the first quarter of the game introduces the plot, the second quarter stays in one place exploring characters, the third quarter is transitional and shallower, and the fourth quarter (I hope) brings it all together in a fitting climax doesn’t sound all that strange to me. Don’t get me wrong, I could imagine a game divided into quarters, each of which explores a town and its residents in more depth, but that would be a different and, I suspect, quieter game.

So, as with year 2, I end up being a contrarian, but this time that’s good news.  I've started year 4; fortunately, I'm closer to the mainstream (positive) impression on that year from what I've seen so far.