Finally got a chance to finish the game! (Was out of town for a few weeks so was only able to begin recently.)
Overall, though there was a lot that I enjoyed about this third part (for the same reasons as the first two parts, the music, the atmosphere, the environments, etc.) I found this part the most cumbersome to play. Most of the puzzles were really quite clumsy largely due to them being so spread out, particularly the telescope puzzle, which unless I missed something, didn't really establish itself as something that needed to be carried out. In a MI game, you can talk to other characters to gather an idea on what to do next. This felt like much more trial and error, which also felt a lot riskier given how spaced out the island was. Steering Kate's ship in the right corners of the lava tunnels was also a nightmare.
I also encountered more glitches this time around. TWICE I emerged from the water in a cave in an area that I clearly wasn't supposed to discover (and I dropped one of my items down there, so that was fun trying to recreate the glitch to find it again!) and there were a few mismatched dialogue/character labels in the climax (i.e. LeChuck delivering a line, but the subtitles read "Kate Capsize" etc.) A few music tracks, sound effects and VO lines also didn't play / play correctly near the end either, namely during the LeChuck fight and as we were sailing away, which again kills the illusion to a degree. And as always, that checkpoint system is the worst. It doesn't suit the "casual gaming" style that I'm forced to play games in nowadays.
But yeah, everything I said before still stands. This game has the best atmosphere and immersion of all of the Monkey Island games. The orchestration of the music is also absolutely stellar, and exploring these locations in 3D is an absolute dream. But yeah, story and writing wise, it's pretty weak when the content is not lifted directly from the original games, and the interface is still very awkward for me as well. I think this is definitely the MI game I'd go back to the least for all of those reasons, so I'd probably rank it at the bottom of my list, but I also don't want to undersell the areas that the game really does excel at.
I'd really be interested to know if this expansion was a hit or not. It really didn't seem to get people talking that much online, even among these forums, but being a free DLC, I suppose it'd be difficult to judge. Maybe they'll just gauge how many people played all three episodes to the end and determine if it was a success based on that.
As a side note... has anybody noticed the pattern that Monkey Islands' returns seems to be following?
MI1/MI2
*6 years later*
CMI/EMI
*9 years later*
TMI / SE's
*12 years later*
ReMI / SeMI
Based on all of this, and assuming another three years are added to the next hiatus, Monkey Island's next return should be due in 2038! Mark your calendars for another two games from then! (Followed shortly by a celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Secret!!! )