Linear isn't always bad. If it isn't Linear then players will always find Shortcuts and then become toxic towards players that don't know said shortcuts.

Take WoW, for example. There's a shortcut in the Blue dragonflight dungeon that results in skipping almost half of it. It requires jumping off and landing in a specific area. No way will players know that this exists unless they look it up or are shown by another player. Course, with the WoW playerbase, that doesn't happen. Players run ahead to the skip then yell and berate the players that don't know about it and are "wasting" their M+ key.