I've written and deleted a few posts that amount to this (Destiny)

by uberfoop , Seattle-ish, Monday, March 23, 2015, 19:16 (3787 days ago) @ Kermit

I say it depends on the game. I know someone, for instance, who wasn't impressed with the Last of Us until about halfway through (and never really liked the game mechanics), but at that point his pace and enjoyment picked up simply because he wanted to find out what happened to the characters. (That he didn't seem to care after the first 20 minutes is a mystery to me, but there you go.)

It's not an issue of finding the characters interesting, it's an issue of being entertained by the flow of their narrative. When the seasons start to change halfway through is when the game really starts to pay off on its setups; you can just feel the narrative cogs start to turn as even the visual palette finally begins to get mixed up.

Not that you could help things out by simply cutting content; all of the first-act content that ND included has a reason to be there. I think the most extreme case of this sort of issue that I've seen was with the film Ikiru; first two thirds are sluggish and bordering on boring, but the final act wouldn't have a thousandth of the massive payoff it does without them.