I got my review copy quite late, but i think many of the bad to mediocre reviews basically are because reviewers didn't get the game they expected.
Catalyst has it's pros and cons over Mirrors Edge. It does have pros though. You can't reinvent the wheel, many games have copied part of Mirrors Edges fluid motion, some newer games have parkour elements. But those aren't things that make Catalyst a worse game.

Just for interest, what are the things that are worse compared to the original?

I'm not sold on it. I liked the linear laid out parkour challenge of the first one, not interested in finding my own path in a bland open city. Levelling up is a horrible addition as well, and I would have liked to see much less combat, more avoidance, not an overhaul and engagement. I'm simply not interested in combat. Even Uncharted 4 has taken a turn for the worse for me in the final chapters, forced to fight wave after wave, no more stealth jumping around puzzling allowed.

At least the time trials are still there? Second hand or steam sale I guess.

The game has like 10 times the time trials. It's what it's built around.

I think you are a bit too pessimistic about it. The game is basically the same with a few additions that are optional.

The gameplay is exactly the same. I haven't come that far but the amount of combat has not increased. In fact they made it even better by adding a dash attack that basically lets you run over the enemies without even losing momentum. In my few hours of play I have come across onlyone scene where I had to beat up 2 dudes. All the other stuff with enemies was just running past them. And thanks to the force shield you won't even have to worry about bullet damage anymore. It's not an overhaul, it's exactly the same combat with slightly more moves to choose from.

If you want linear then turn on your runner vision and just follow the single path and just the main story. It's the same really. Though I do wonder why you even intent to play this game if you don't like running.

The level system is also optional. There is nothing in there that is needed to go through the game. Through the main missions alone you get so much XP that you can just unlock the stuff you want without having to grind in side activities.

Did you enjoy the original or not? Because you sound like you didn't. If you didn't then just don't bother at all. If you did then I don't know what the problem is. You seem like you want to find some fault with it to not have to spend money on it. If you loved the previous on, you will love this one, it's that easy. Because it is the same game, just with lots more content.

Brought it on PC, its an ok game however i am not sure how this game pushes limits for consoles. Its not really that much of a jump from the first one aside from it being an openworld experience. Dice has been real lazy with the optimizing of this game. Battlefront is a game i expect to push hardware and looks miles better then Mirrors Edge yet ME struggles the same way BF does.

It's really badly optimized. It frequently runs into the CPU bottleneck on my PC. Barely get stable 60 fps while my GPU is yawning. I hope they will be offloading a lot of the physics to the GPU with future patches but I'm not holding my breath.

After the awesome performance of Battlefront I expected a lot better.

I did enjoy the original apart from the combat. I like the flow of the running segments. What I'm worried about is that the open world structure / finding a path will break up that flow. I'm worried about all the extra fluff that might be optional or not, like adding backtracking and finding starting points or whatever. I don't care about the money, I care about my time. I rather have a short quality time than have it filled out with fluff.
I'll get it some day anyway, right now I still have too many other games to start/finish and this doesn't scream play me now to me :)

Mirrors Edge had a great pacing because of it's linearity. And that got better and better if you knew the game. That's something Catalyst rarely has as good as Mirrors Edge had. Mirrors Edge could have an insane flow of movement. That's not possibly to the same degree, at least in the 'overworld'. It's a bit different on main missions.

The whole upgrade system sucks. It's totally unneccessary. Especially buying basic moves (for Mirrors Edge standards).

While melee combat improved i dislike not having the option to disarm enemies and pick up their gun. Gunplay in Mirrors Edge wasn't really bad but weapons gave you disadvantages for range and firepower. DICE should have improved that instead of taking away an option. Note that most of my playthroughs were completely without weapons. Light attacks are somewhat useless and i dislike not having my attacks on the right trigger anymore.

Mandatory arenas are not well designed. Yes, they're probably better than those two mandatory fights in Mirrors Edge. But they're also more and longer.

On the other hand, exploring the overworld or areas of it, searching new way and try to get somewhere is definetely fun. Side missions are kind of demanding. Doing dahses and user generated time trials is a nice thing. And the main missions let Catalyst feel more like classic Mirrors Edge. Side note, that's why i'd actually say it's overworld and 'dungeons'. If you play the story you use the map to go from main mission to main mission, those have their own areas and are quite linear.