I totally understand the complaint, I have a similar issue with Kena and F.I.S.T. right now, except the other way around - very often you clearly see there's a way o get somewhere, but you don't know if you have to figure it ot now, or need to get back later with new set of skills, so all the time you end up wasting a lot of time desperately trying to figure out how to open the damn new path, for nothing.
This is the issue I find with non-linear games that allow for backtracking, actually are build around it, you're often "stuck" because you don't know if you should figure out either where to go next now or how to get to what seems to be within your reach.
You're both right to some degree, while the design is bad, watching Jaffe playing the game made me feel "damn Jaffe, you're getting too old for gaming, wonder when my time will come as well?".