Went ahead and played Spate took me about an hour and a half. The art style and atmosphere were top notch and the music was really well done. I enjoyed the story and the narration for the most part, although it kinda feel apart for me at the end. I found the game play to be pretty bland across the board, the world just wasn't very interesting to traverse at all. There are pretty long stretches were you just press the forward key or tap the jump key and don't do much else, it really kills the pacing.
*EDIT* I also want to add that the game was buggy, had the game soft lock on me and a couple of instances where I had to restart at a checkpoint after getting stuck.
Sounds like a bummer. Thanks for the quick review.