Yeah, this mission was clearly on the hard side (I played original version and not Director's Cut though). It has strong and extremely thick dark atmosphere (and I actually liked Bank iirc) but quite loaded with backtracking and with lots of things that are very vague and not obvious esp. when you are playing it first time. Lots of stuff is hidden behind small levers and buttons (I even recall that some main objective stuff also). I played it on Hard and can only imagine how Expert will look...
I think it's ok first mission. Slapdash, very unpolished and with too steep loot requirement and - occasionally - dream logic of progression, yet… I spent 1 hour playing it and somehow slightly liking what I've seen. It was sometimes juvenile and funny but sometimes in a good way. I don't want to be too harsh on it.
I'll tell one story. One day in the past I finished T2 FM Tough Night (made by another newcomer as you can remember) and it evoked the same feelings as what you described in ...
I actually quite like opening sections. Finding way forward was not easy task (and map was not that helpful), but I liked challenge. On the other hand it was hard to find the main Mcguffin and I didn't like the fact that to finish mission you must trudge through the entire level back.
I can't comment the original release of DF but I played Tough Night which was released along first release of Dark Forest and it was subpar. It is city level with very samey architecture. Very, very samey an...