Frankly, I'm a little disappointed. The first thing I noticed when I started the level was that the cutscenes were very long, and I could barely hear some of the voices, while some were a bit loud. The voice acting itself, however, was very good, especially compared to some other games I've played. Once I got into the gameplay, I loved the environment of the first area, and the music was excellent. It took a bit of exploration (which is good), but I found the wall climb and proceeded to the mountain. The first scene there was alright, I heard it well. The second one, however, had some issues. I couldn't hear the old man very well, so I missed the password hint. I ended up looking in the editor for the code. Now, to the environment. I liked the mountain at first, the clouds were a nice touch. And again, excellent music. However, running through the same place for so long, without run, no less, got incredibly tedious and boring. I believe you had said something about how the exploration factor in levels like "The Machine" adds more fun to the game. However, I think the thing that sets your level apart from that is that the environment is the same throughout. In "The Machine" there were several diverse areas that always added something extra to look at, to suck the player back in, and I think that's the key in successful exploration-based levels. However, I can understand that you're going for a feeling of sadness, and it's probably hard to mix "diverse" and "sad" into the same level. Don't get me wrong, the environment conveyed Aden's sadness very well, but it just got old fast for me. A little bit more nitpicking, bear with me. The one-column-no-climb thing bugged me to no end. Ice on the walls would look so much better. Finally, I can't quite remember where or how, but I ended up in the secret area randomly a couple of times, which confused me a lot. Once I figured it out, I enjoyed it. (poor Juni) This level does have some to be desired, but I'm looking forward to further installments.
Overall:7/10