To me Amnesia franchise incarnates the story of sin and repentance. Every game (Bunker excluded..) features a protagonist who's done something terrible that lead to awful consequences and then forgot all about it. And now it's their one and only job to carry on through the horror mostly caused by their previous actions, and atone for past sins.

Dark Descent blazed this idea into the franchise and Machine for Pigs managed to interprete it in a more chambered and narrative oriented railed story.
And Rebirth, unfortunately, utterly fails at delivering the same level of self-awareness and payback within the plot.

No matter which ending you get, you're left with this stale aftertaste in your mouth and it's not because Tasi (the protagonist) deserved being eternally punished for her actions. But simply due to Empress's (the antagonist) whim of turning her and her crew into ghouls/harvesters. It ruins all the built-up tension you've experienced throughout the story and nullifies it till the point where you don't feel any satisfaction and time's wasted on a pointless story.

From a narrative pov, in my opinion, though Rebirth tries to broaden the lore and elaborate on terms and events mentioned in Dark Descent, picking an "advanced civilization" from a parallel universe just seems lazy. Besides, there're too many subplots to catch up with (unlike Dark Descent that knew exactly when to stop) and considering how plot's fed to you in the form of notes (and flashbacks on a rare basis), it becomes a problem to figure everything out without consulting with Amnesia Wiki and whatnot. Machine for Pigs suffered with the same delivery disfunction though at least it didn't have as much things to keep in mind at the same time.


Rebirth took several steps forward technically but, unfortunately, backed down on the plot. And in the franchise that emphasises immersiveness over gameplay ("don't play Amnesia to win") it's fatal.