I just finished watching your playthrough, thank you for making and posting it!
You make some very good points on how the game plays and where it does and doesn't work, and I agree with almost all of them. Especially the boat sequence is very unfair and frustrating. Also the pacing with the long waiting time is bad. I think the general "slowness" of this section and also the insta-kills are generally ok, but having the player go through all of this again in full length if they don't make it, is as you said bad design. Also I totally missed that the player can actually go behind the boxes and I should have make it so that either the player can't go there or that he is safe from the search light.
The crouching thing is on you, though :P No not really, but I was wondering if that searchlight insta-kill machanic comes too abruptly. Maybe I should have introduced that a bit earlier in the game and at the same time explain the crouch mechanic to the player through gameplay. At one point I wanted to have a simpler version of that mechanic in the temple area, but I had to cut it due to jam time constraints.
Regarding the controls/camera work - sometimes it is quite wonky. In the control screen I have a message saying that the game is intended to be played with a gamepad, as I think this provides more control. It still is a little weird even with a gamepad and the camera freaks out very often when you don't walk the "ideal" path, but I think it plays way better than with a keyboard (I included keyboard controls, because I didn't want to lock out players who don't own a gamepad).
I'm thinking about working on a small update that adresses some of these issues. Mainly the boat section and the first platforming section in the canyon, which is an area where a few players got stuck with that infinite falling collision bug. I also think the platforming part there is unnecessarilycomplicated.
Other than that, I had a really good time watching your playthrough! The editing was quite funny, so in that way - as a neutral viewer - even the bugs provided some entertainment :)
(Also good catch on that SOMA-reference!)