Play with the lights off and everything is accentuated. I jumped more than once. By comparison with the first game, this one is longer and more difficult. These are both good things given that the first game was considered by many to be too short and too easy. The puzzles and challenges seemed to me to get more difficult as you moved through the game, which gives you time to settle into the rhythm and feel of the game before you have to think too hard.
Some puzzles are slightly obtuse, but never annoyingly so, and some are deviously clever.
Occasionally to move on you have to find a single small hot spot, but as far as I can recall there were limited places to look. Dracula himself also has a much bigger on screen role in this game, which speaks for itself as a very good thing. It is almost continuous, and results in constant small delays every time you do something. It is ever present, and is at its most irritating when you access the inventory. I am not a technical person, but given that hard drive space is rarely an issue these days, the need for constant access to the CD Rom seems unnecessary.