At first I was put off by: No pack mule, c'mon that was DS's trademark element! No party, just one companion, boo!
However, once I played it(almost done my first run through), I realized this is simply a different take on the Dungeon Siege style game. Once you accept that fact, it actually works pretty well. One thing I didn't focus on in the first two DS games was tactics in combat. I used formations and party AI settings I wanted, then simply directed the party to advance or retreat as needed, the AI did the rest.
In this game I'm having a lot of fun directly controlling Lucas's every move in the boss fights. I don't really miss the packmules since this is not really a loot focused game, more a combat focused game.