Despite some well-documented flaws, as a package there's much to admire, and many hours of enjoyment to be had.
Upon loading, the first thing that you notice is the wonderful graphic style, which is stylish and polished. It is one-dimensional though, and later in the game you tend to take the graphics for granted, proving that style is nothing without substance.
Now, onto the substance. Yes, there is lots of walking about, talking to people, finding and using items. Some of it could barely be described as gameplay in the modern, cutting-edge sense, although as an older gamer, I don't get snobby about simple puzzle-solving adventure games.
The substance is in the heart of the game. The plot and characters are excellent, and have significant depth, much more so than in Another Code. There are lots of twists and turns, and even though the environment is small, it does the job.
The puzzles that you come across during the story vary in difficulty, but none are too hard. I'm not as excited as some people appear to be about how they "brilliantly" use the DS's features. I care more about whether I'm enjoying the game, than whether I'm explicitly using the stylus to pretend to be moving a crowbar. Ironically, some of these parts that use the "DS features", are the most gameplay-free moments.
The only issue I have with the gameplay is that sometimes (mostly) it is far too easy to work out what to do, but sometimes it's nearly impossible, and you can finish up walking around randomly until you hit upon the right thing.
The linearity is no more of a problem than it is in a book or an album, and I refuse to judge a game on abstract criteria. I enjoyed the experience, end of story.
Although as with Phoenix Wright and most handheld games with text for that matter, why there can't be an option to automatically continue reading text is beyond me. Not everyone is five years old, and there are usually only ten words on the screen at once.
I wouldn't say it genuinely moved me in the same way as an epic film can, but it's certainly something different in a good way, and that in itself makes it worth playing.