While I usually have no issues with a hub world for the design, I feel like it was implemented in a pretty arbitrary way here. I mean, "ride down 5 elevators to activate final elevator" feels pretty weird.
I have little against the sprinting, actually. I know the point is that you're in a strange place, taking in the sights and stuff, but depending on whether some areas are too big or small, it can be more or less useful. I still feel it's good to have it as an option tho. The jump definitely could use an improvement, and I don't find that idea of a climb to pull yourself up a ledge a bad idea either!
Something I am against is how the content of the beta was locked behind the biggest gate of tickets in the game, meaning it'll probably be the last of the 4 available rooms you'll explore... Despite the fact you entered the game through a pool area. What's more, it still feels like the most fleshed out area in the game, with the most commentary and panel puzzles of all areas. It also ends up making the Shadow Person feel like... a whole lotta nothing, at least in the context of this chapter. If they build up on it for the following chapters, then it's fine. I sometimes forget this isn't supposed to be a standalone game after all. I did like how they turned the progression in that area a bit more around it's head, but it still feels a little unpolished in some bits.
In fact, while I'm not against the idea of tickets and the capitalistic consumerism message it brings with it, it also feels somewhat unnecessary. I like how Anemoiapolis was supposed to be a place folks were supposed to live in, with currency and room for businesses and stuff, but at the same time, part of me wishes that was never clear at all. The purpose of Liminal Spaces is either purely ambiguous to us , or downright non-existent, and we'll never be sure of it. I always like to describe them as "AI generated rooms that try to replicate human spaces", and while the movies in the theater imply that as well, I feel like the attempt of creating a space for humans played a part as well. I'll respect it if that was the intention tho, this is merely my perspective on Liminal Spaces after all.
Speaking of the Movie Theatre, I didn't like how it ended. Felt a little too surrealist/weirdcore to me. Like, a white void in a cinema screen, with a bridge of giant tickets that lead to a floating elevator door? Now that feels like a dream, but a lot more separated from the somewhat realistic feels of liminal rooms in my opinion.
Also the final area you visit is pretty lame. It's randomly generated, and you can very easily find an exit. It's short, has very little impact, and it's a big letdown, given how the game was leading up to it as "the mysterious fifth area that wasn't there before". The messages you get when you open the doors to "go to the next level" or "replay the intro" make it feel a little too video game-y, and the animations of the water in the bathroom taps just... stop when you clos the tap. It feels a bit unpolished, given how it's a very early area in the game.
At the end of the day, it feels like, instead of further expanding from the sizeable meal they had in the beta... they added a bunch of side dishes, and relegated the previous main dish to be yet another side dish, and one you usually eat late into the meal, despite being the most well cooked one. And then for desert, you get a brick, and the promise of another meal in the future, hopefully a better one too.
Those rants aside, I feel like they could've kept the hub world, but instead of making the locks feel so arbitrary, and relegating the pools to be just another world (and a late one at that), they could've made the mall area you stumble into after leaving the pools the hub world itself, with each area you visit being another "store" in the area. Instead of tickets, you'd either just enter the area through the doors, find a way around to get inside it (like the In n' Out that's in the game), or you'd need to find a key to open the locked door. Maybe the way to leave the mall would be through a locked door that leads to maintenance tunnels, with you needing to look around to find a spare key for those. It's a lot more natural feeling than arbitrary paywalls for tickets or used elevators.
And think about other areas they could have, like arcades, the aforementioned maintenance tunnels, somewhat more furnished office rooms, underground parking lots, storage warehouses Ikea-style, playrooms for kids, food courts, empty supermarket shelves and halls, maybe even flooded hallways and decayed versions of these rooms as well, with broken walls and ceiling lights, and electric wires falling from the ceiling. It's a few suggestions that I'm sure they're saving for the next chapters, but it remains to be seen if folks are willing to pay more for further chapters of this series.