Even though I have a zero percent optimism that they are going to smarten up and change their horrendous checklist-game-design-by-comittee abomination for the sequel, I hope you are right. I hope they used TR2013 to lure skill-averse gamers into the fold, so they can smack them upside the head in the sequel.
The interesting thing about TR2013, at least the only interesting thing as far as I am concerned, is that the actual platforming mechanics (that is to say, the way Lara Croft moves/jumps and her momentum) are drastically better than they were in any of the other Crystal Dynamics titles. But the entire game designed around those mechanics was atrocious. There wasn't a single need to get any better at anything. The window of error for jumps was so comically large that I probably could have closed my eyes and gained victory in all these obstacles. None of the levels were designed to challenge you or even interest you. As far as I can tell, they are there simply to provide pretty backdrops, because they certainly aren't there to demonstrate quality level design or anything.
In the original Tomb Raider games, you frequently had sprawling, brilliantly epic multiroom puzzles that didn't only require your brain - they often required your quick reflexes and application of your acquired skills to that point. You might solve a particularly hard puzzle, only to realize that now a clock is ticking and you have to navigate an obscenely difficult platforming obstacle course to make it an slide under the door before it closes.
There is nothing that even remotely comes close to the tension and rewarding nature of the best of OG Tomb Raider such as illustrated in that door example above. Bridges cinematically breaking around you to not threat of your own body as long as you press forward is not close. I don't know how anyone on Earth thought this was a good exchange, eliminating the only franchise left in the industry that still played this impressively for... that.... Uncharted/gore/AAA clone.
Back in the day, you didn't need the sounds of bullets echoing off the walls to be entertained. Tomb Raider 2013 thinks the only point to games IS to shoot bullets or arrows. 80% of my time in that game was spent navigating from one combat encounter to the next. OG TR fans used to mock whenever a TR game started bringing in too much combat, because we all knew that was never the point. The point was trying to use your wits and skills to navigate an ever increasing series of trap/obstacle courses and puzzle rooms whilst platforming in a very precise manner. People complain about the controls, but they were extremely deliberate and predictable, meaning the second you got a handle on them - and the learning curve was relatively steep, admittedly - the entire game benefited from the application of its precision. You jumped in a grid pattern, and so all your moves were able to be mapped out down to the second.
No, when OG Tomb Raider was around, the only thing gamers needed to keep them comfortable at night was the haunting screams of Lara Croft as she plummets to her doom for the 12th time after you yet again miss that swinging pole to get to the other side. Maybe you can't quite make that jump? But it's so close... I see Lara extending her hand to grab it. Maybe if I edge myself closer to the corner next time and--- ahhhh no. Dead again. And I loved every moment of it.
Like, I don't care that a franchise isn't for me. What I care about is when you appropriate a franchise for your own use, and then edit out every single thing that could even tangentially be related to that franchise - Tomb Raider - we know and love. At least have some respect for a cherished franchise and show you get what it's all about. What happened was the literal definition of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Anyway, I really enjoyed reading this article, I agree with a lot of the points, but think she needs to be even more definitive in the changes.
They can for example keep the actual Lara Croft physics/momentum of TR2013 and make a game that plays like the classics of old, if they so chose. It'd be a miracle at this point if it went down that way, but I'm always one or hope.