This game draws me in right the way with its opening cut scene. Original music score was very nice and sound effects back it up nicely. I gave it five very serious tries before giving up looking for the road. (My heart couldn't take any more dying after that, sorry) I got Niko killed via thirst like three times before I figure out how to harvest water from cactus plants. I think if the instructions to play was in-game like you did with the battle system, it would have helped me greatly. The battle system was simple but fun. I agree with dunkelgrau that it was a little jarring going from main game to battle system. But I think you can fix that simply by putting a grid over some terrain tiles from the main game instead of using a plain background over a photo backdrop.
Overall a neat game and I wish I could have seen more of it!