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I had a similar experience. It's unfortunate since I hear it get praised constantly for being a masterpiece and I am a big fan of puzzle games, but it just would not click for me. I think it's also to do with the nature of the puzzle being kind of abstract (and at times almost subjective since I think multiple answers can potentially be correct for some causes of death). The game tries to handle this with the evidenc…
Same here, and I also felt like I was missing out, since people were raving about it so much. But to me it really did feel like I had to slowly work on making any progress, and I mean "work" in its most tedious meaning. Though, I wonder whether, had I played past a certain point where my evidence book would have had enough "critical mass" for things to fall into place more readily, it would have been more fun. Not su…
Just enjoy the first part cinematically. Explore the ship and unlock the scenes. Absorb the atmosphere from the scenes, and enjoy the music. Try to figure out the disjointed narrative, and don't focus on your puzzle book. (One of the flaws is that the forced waiting sequence should IMO lock you out of accessing the puzzle book completely. I often forgot, and got annoyed because I could not enter the cause of death before the page got unlocked after the scene...) You will not be able to solve a lot in the first pass anyways. The game throws you some freebies, yes, but that's just to let you get used to handling the book.
For context, once I had unlocked all scenes, I had not even one quarter of the book solved, and despite what I recommend in the first paragraphs, it was not for lack of trying. This is when you notice that you have everything you need, and a sort of panic sets in. You realize that it will not get easier than this. This intrigued me a lot, and this was when the real puzzle game starts. Now you revisit all the scenes analyzing every nook and cranny of the dioramas like some nautical Sherlock Holmes. But it's never stupid "hunt the pixel" like one would assume from that description, no. I have never seen the attention for detail in any game before, and the dev really thought of everything.
If you ever find yourself thinking "Oh wow, I can deduce something here from the position of that piece of scenery, but there is no way this was intended", then the answer is always "Oh yes, it totally was". Then you enter the suspicion into the book, and suddenly the game validates you by copying your notes into print with that cheerful music jingle. After a while the screen turning black and the first notes starting will give you a dopamine rush already.
The game captures perfectly what for example escape rooms or detective stories are about. The only real downside of the game is that the replay value is 0 by its very concept. I envy you for still being able to play it blind.