Huh, Yahtzee confirmed and validated my opinion. I feel strangely content and fulfilled...
Seriously, though, I didn't get into Transistor. I loved Bastion and was all set to love Transistor, but the whole game felt like the developers weren't quite sure what they did right with Bastion, but would really like to do it again, so they stumble around, trying to mimic the previous game while not being the same. And it kinda doesn't work...
Everything is just so needlessly vague and feels like it's trying waaay too hard to be artsy. The setting, the story, the writing, etc. It all felt so insubstantial and pointless. Verbose when they should be to the point, uninformative when information is required. The sad thing is, the underlying ideas and setting are pretty cool, but the way they're presented feels pretentious and needlessly obfuscated. The problem isn't what they're trying to say, it's HOW they are saying it (or not saying it).
As for the gameplay, there really is only one aspect of it, the combat. Ok, preparing for combat would be a second aspect. And both of those are good ideas with poor execution. The combat feels clunky, unresponsive, imprecise and just plain isn't fun. The setting up of custom built abilities is a good concept, but the results are too unpredictable and vague and I just couldn't enjoy any of it.
I was a few hours into the game before I realized I wasn't having fun. But I wanted to, I really did, it's just that the game tried too hard, failed to get there and I couldn't help but feel embarrassed for it...