Well, he did play the game, he’s judging the book by the first few chapters. If you don’t like any aspect of the gameplay, even if the story could be good, it’s very understandable why he dropped it.
A metroidvania with time travel elements, you are a robot that can see the future investigating a planet, every time you save it creates a vertice in a timeline tree where you can jump around. I wish it was more ambitious but with the small team and budget, it did what it wanted pretty well, with my critique being a lack of polish in a few areas.