Disagree on the level design part,it's not that bad , the random encounters on map can be two or three enemies but have a look at their challenge rating, met a shambler ,cr 5, at level 3, it was an ok challenging fight for that level. The twelve thugs encounter may surprise you during your sleep and half of them get high ground in the dark while the campfire put you into light. It's like temple of annihilation random encounters in the jungle , nothing more or less.
I have not seen any dungeon crawl worthy of the name yet, you still have unlimited rests and the encounters are set at Deadly, which means in fact trivial as you have all your resources and do them one by one . No change at all in this area, that's not how you are supposed to run 5E , if you think solasta was too easy , this wont change your mind.
The plot is indeed extremely weak and predictable everything is obvious from the beginning, i have not finished it yet, but at this point i am not expecting any surprise. Still some good things, it had new monsters and tiles, more ammo for the modders.