Jonathan Blow really lost his edge around 2015.
People hate The Witness? just tell them, after the fact, that our eponymous witness witnessed something so severe, so atrocious, that when they dissociate they don't go to a happy place, they don't go to a dark place, the go to the secret third place with line puzzles.
The reason the puzzles move more and more away from the standard play field and eventually cause the Tetris Effect is simply the bounds between reality and the dissociative state blending together.
two paragraphs and suddenly everyone's buying it again. the pretention is expected.