I didn't really like the cold open either, but a lot of TV-watchers (or readers for that matter) get annoyed if things aren't explained to them right away and they can't just go with the flow. I remember how many people complained about the Witcher and how the different timelines were running concurrently. I thought it was a cool device. Lots of people were just confused.
Anyways, the first episode of the Last of Us was great other than that, practically following the opening of the game shot-for-shot. Video game adaptations have always been garbage in the past and this seems like a case where they finally figured it out.
I think my one other beef is that it follows the game
too closely, and I say that has someone who has played TLOU through at least three times. As you say there's a lot of scenes that are lifted straight from the game which I think is lazy, but I do get why they do it.