Well, I haven't played in 10 years but I do remember my friend having to take over for a few parts, and I am watching Living Sun's playthrough of them right now and this is his primary complaint about them, and seeing him die over and over again I kinda have to agree.
Is the combat sequences. I'm not saying there shouldn't be any, but if you're familiar with Tomb Raider: Legend and Anniversary, they do it much better.
Of course the games are more fun with a main villain and so of course you expect to fight their mooks as enemies. But these sequences often drag out for too long, there are too many enemies at once, sometimes they take more hits than you do, etc. And sometimes, especially in the first game and to a bit of a lesser extent in the second, they seem the main focus over the Tomb Raider style climbs, jumps, and obstacles, and/or the puzzles.
Don't get me wrong, the obstacles courses and puzzles are pretty fun, it's what I love about the Tomb Raider Legend Trilogy that the Survival Trilogy is lacking (at least for the obstacle courses, I think there are puzzles in the small tombs but they're a lot trickier). And the story is pretty good too, and I especially love Uncharted 3. Just that they went a bit overboard on the combat sequences. Even in Uncharted 3, while they did improve greatly, there are still that one fight on Rameses's ship and the whole sequence under the hallucinogenic drug in Ubar.
In the Tomb Raider Legend Trilogy, for the most part, the enemies go down faster, and those that take more hits like lions, bears, etc. there usually aren't so many of them (except panthers in one Egypt room and demons in Natla's Mines), and that's more the sideshow than the athletic obstacles and puzzles.
Who else thinks that, in many ways, the combat sequences should have been toned down a bit?