It's an adventure game. The fun of adventure games comes from the story and puzzles, not running around and blowing stuff up, and the Gamespot reviewer doesn't agree with you–he said it was decent but kind of pedestrian. Overall it got average to pretty good reviews, like this one: http://www.justadventure.com/reviews/Echo/Echo.shtm I've played the demo…if you like Myst-type games then you'd probably like this. If not, then you won't.

other than that the gameplay looks pathetic. It seems like they probably focused more on story and graphics, less on gameplay and fun.

But I'm just basing that off of the trailer video.

…

Oh, looks like the Gamespot reviewer agrees with me and presumably, they've actually played the game.