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Pirates turns out to be a lot more linear than it seems early on.
While the game opens up new areas in a linear fashion, it leaves the previous areas available to revisit. However, if you are reasonably thorough the first time through, going back to these sites is usually unnecessary. The side quests, with one exception, are mostly completed after your first pass through all the areas. Once you have the best ship you can buy, collecting more money is pointless, so searching for those last few stray treasure chests offers nothing new. Granted, you still have to purchase some supplies, but you should have plenty of cash for those things already.
One thing dragging down the score is the last set of levels, the fire islands. Pirates goes from a fantastic looking, brightly lit and beautiful place to this gawd-awful, horribly dark setting with opaque, neon orange... water. Or is that lava I'm sailing through? Either way it makes no sense. Worse, the islands are so poorly lit that I walked right past at least two treasure chests that were sitting in the middle of my path.
Another design failure is the use of slopes to block in the player. When Kat tries to go too high or somewhere she isn't intended to go, she is forced to slide back down the side of whatever she is walking on. This would be fine if it were at all clear when or where this would occur. Sometimes you are walking straight up incredibly steep mountains and sometimes you find yourself unable to trek up the shallowest grade. This blocking feature is not at all communicated to the player and leads to some incredibly frustrating moments in many areas of the game.
One interesting note about the production. They do not play the credits after the final cut scene. The game just resets back to the main menu. The credits are accessible via the options menu, but are devoid of any polish and do not even feature the better musical selections from the game. Note to developers: when you work hard to produce a great game, please take the time to credit yourselves for the effort.
Despite its flaws, the game is a fun ride and a grand pirate-worthy adventure. The campaign is 15-20+ hours, very long by today's standards. It is a swashbuckling action-packed adventure that is well worth the time. Arr!
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