Finished it - pretty good game, although not nearly as good as good as JTR and suffers from the same flaws, chief of which is the fact that motherfucking EVERYBODY in Victorian Britain seemed to have a clever puzzle lock on whatever shit-encrused paper bag they stored their essential quest items in, causing many screeching gameplay halts when you have to stop playing an adventure game to work out some inane and poorly explained puzzle, although some of them were fairly entertaining. In the defense of the game, you CAN skip them if you bungle around with them for long enough. I skipped the one with the strongroom in the villa (because fuck sliding beads around) and the one with the animal pieces near the end (shittily explained, didn't hold my interest).
It also sadly moves away from the whole "investigation" aspect and becomes a more straightforward item-based puzzler about 2/3rds into the game, at which point Holmes amazingly deducts the true nature and identity of the villain, making further measuring of footprints and examinations of crime scenes unnecessary. This is a great shame. It's Sherlock Motherfucking Holmes, not Guybrush Threepwood, let me investigate some shit, please! I can go elsewhere if I want to use every item on every object in the gameworld.
The characterisation of both Holmes and Watson is great and the voice acting is excellent. Holmes is more of an arrogant cocksucker than ever and Watson is wonderful both as the butt of Holmes' condescending mockery and as his solid stoic down-to-earth best friend. It still isn't understandable why Watson puts off with the annoying faggot, but Holmes B4 Ho's, I guess.
Unfortunately, the writers appear to have run out of ideas about halfway through the story, or at least couldn't come up with any especially convincing ways of linking the midgame to the endgame, which made the STARTLING REVELATION OMG setting off the endgame come across as pretty derp. This type of anticlimax is a common problem with the Holmes games. Holmes vs JTR ended with a silly puzzle carried out in Holmes & Watson's flat and then a lengthy cutscene and this game has occasional flat leadups to big events.
I liked the ending, personally. I thought it was quite touching and worked well to give Holmes a bit of much-needed humanity to his character.
7/10. Solid and entertaining, but falls flat occasionally. Recommend getting it at reduced price, but well worth playing.