I've played every game in the series (including the hidden object adventure Hound of the Baskervilles - don't judge me!) and this is the leading contender. Full disclosure if it isn't obvious: I've got fan bias.
I would say Crimes & Punishments is cleaner, with a better story, and slightly easier gameplay than Testament, which had several more confusing goals and a lot of aimless wandering (at least in my experience). Most of the time in C&P, the next step has been fittingly logical. Still, there's quite a bit of backtracking or travelling in some cases and so the pacing swings around like it did in Testament. Most of the core mechanics will be familiar to you like the deduction board, investigative talent "glow in the dark" view, etc. While both games have too much pixel hunting, if you could bear it in Testament, it's at least not as bad this time around.
I remember Testament was pretty... gorey, and that's not really the case this time around. There are corpses and you do have to get up close and personal a few times, but the tone of the whole game in C&P isn't as dark.
If you do choose to get the game, I hope you like it as much as I did! Good luck out there, fellow detectives
Congrats!
one of us, one of us!
