Before saying that handheld consoles couldn't deliver good surprises I should have played this game. It's quite good.
Now the Vita is a different story. With the latter devices I've never been able to play for more than 30 minutes and with this one I find myself so stuck in it that hours can slip past me without notice.
Fifa 13 surprised me but Uncharted dazzled me...
The graphical power of the machine is very very impressive and it's on games such as this one that it is shown best. Sometimes penalized for an excess confidence the developers had on the power of the console - framerate issues are noticeable here and there, when there are a bunch of enemies firing at you at once - you just know that the machine has been pushed to it's limits and the outcome couldn't be more satisfying.
I don't thing the intricate and complicated story that it tells is the most important thing here so I'm not able to penalize the game for it. It pretty much excells in all that matters - graphics, sound, soundtrack and so on.
Could be harder sometimes, more challenging here and there, lived better without the complex story and the framerate issues but believe me it's quite a masterpiece.
The handheld's limitations can also be noticed on a straining level design (there's only one way that you can go through levels, not being able to wonder around) and in very (but very) intense zoom-ins that can square things up sometimes - rare issue this one though.
Front touchscreen is wisely used but the back panel isn't - for going up on a rope, for instance, you'll find much better to just use the analogue stick.
Dual analogue is probably the most useful of all game useable innovations the Vita has for this type of games.
Uncharted: Golden Abyss is definitely a game worth a go for.