The only negative I agree with is the Merchant, I've heard there was some kind of side-story to him that ended up getting cut.
As for everything else, it seems like you're looking for an FPS, and this is definitely not that. It's meant to be a bit more "realistic" (difficult) combat so that when you get hit it hurts and when you shoot a zombie he isn't necessarily going to care. You're not meant to feel safe fighting these zombies, and there aren't any situations early in the game where you're actually supposed to fight off a crowd of people with the knife. The random head explosions are just that -- random critical hits that result in an instant death. Otherwise you're playing the typical drain-the-hp game. Playing the Wii version probably made it a bit easier for me I guess.
The button pressing minigames are supposed to add suspense and difficulty to the game. Since dieing has effectively no penalty -- you just start from the beginning of the area again -- why does it really matter?
PS: Whenever someone threw something at me I just shot it in midair and it fell down harmlessly. Then I charged the offender like Rambo and shot him once in the head and kicked his head off.







