I love the arcadey nature of this game.
Having every level randomize your debuffs (freezing,starving) and COBB's buffs kept each level interesting.
I especially enjoyed COBB's hearing mechanic, because it allowed you to mislead him using the rocks and breakers. The starving debuff also forced me to keep track of the carrot's placement and how many I could eat. It added a level of strategy and planning that makes the game overall more enjoyable and replayable. I also think the limitation on how many items you can hold at one time also adds to the strategy of the game.
However in harder levels, I feel like when COBB is given sight, hearing, and smell it takes those strategic options away from the player and makes things feel too unfair, especially with the added debuffs. There were times where the game devolved into a chase that I couldn't escape from and felt that I couldn't avoid.
Maybe this could be fixed by having each duplicate COBB a single sensing buff?
I'd argue that you should try to find a way to balance the game mechanics out without sacrificing difficulty and player strategy, so that when a player get themselves caught in the later levels it's mostly their fault.
I think one way this could be done, is guaranteeing a serious debuff for both COBB and the player that they must both grapple with.
For example, when COBB is blind but can hear and you have starving and must flip breakers. In that scenario it forces you into two different situations that could capture COBB's attention.
P.S. I think having the carrot eating noise capture should capture a stronger reaction in Cobb almost as much as flipping a breaker. I feel like it would be more interesting, because so far that mechanic hasn't really affected my gameplay that much. But that's just my experience.