The reviews that I read/watched (GT, Kotaku, Eurogamer, Edge, Rev3games and gamespot) all mentioned most if not all of the gameplay complaints I had. The thing is they all go on to basically say "the sum of its parts make it good" and I disagree with that. Because they're basically saying the gameplay blows but the story and other non gaming parts make up for it, and unless we're talking about adventure games (most recently the walking dead) who purposely set out to not have a ton of gameplay, story and "character development" doesn't make up for bad gameplay in a video game.
They really don't. They describe the gameplay as something that - in your opinion - blows. However, in their opinion it's obviously good enough to warrant such a high score. Every review says that the combat is good, for example. And the puzzles are good, as well. Some of them are just a little too easy and there's too few of them. That's a bad thing to you but that doesn't make the game generally bad.