I'm harsh in my ratings; I'd give this a "thoroughly all right", but that comes to a solid (or even upper) four stars by most other people's standards. The story's interesting, the artwork's amazing, and the music fades into the background but does quite well in setting the tone even so. Unfortunately the interface is a little rough in places -- though it's certainly still entirely functional -- and in a way this comes across as reminiscent of early adventure games, where you need to do X to unlock Y but where the importance of X isn't signposted and where everything surrounding X remains the same as the last time you were in the area.
I think the problem I had with Dead Ringer as a whole is that while the characters are deep enough for the timeframe, the only one which really grabbed my interest was the fifth one met, and the next time they're a major focus of a scene is near the end of the game (though there's good reason for it, and I /don't/ actually think the pacing could be improved there). Similarly, the Phoenix Wright style summation at the end felt a bit fuzzy ("What's the motivation?" "Because it's the simplest reason this other thing might be in play!"), "No one" is actually offered as an 'accusation' at one point under "it doesn't really matter" logic, and we never learn what exactly Felix was doing during a critical moment. I've got my suspicions, and a headcanon narrative that I'm rather fond of, but the official payoff feels a bit flat.
Ultimately, I definitely don't regret the time I spent on this, and there's enough here that the memories of the characters linger as pleasant echoes in the back of my mind. It's nothing spectacular, but we put too much emphasis on spectacle and perfection nowdays, anyway, and this is a perfectly suitable novel for curling up on the couch with and reading during a rainy fall afternoon.