This is not a knock on this show, as I realize they are following an existing story from a video game, but, I wish one of these zombie shows would would spend more time in the transition between normal life and zombie apocalypse. They always have a big time jump where they skip past most of it. The worst offender was FTWD. They had an opportunity to bring a unique perspective from TWD, but basically did a X week jump and became the same show. I would have liked if the first entire season of FTWD showed that transition. Maybe spend an episode per main character group. How did they first hear rumors? When did they see their first zombie? How the hell did they get out of there. And so forth. Maybe end the first season with everybody joining together somewhere and then they start season 2 in "zombie steady state."
Regarding this show, I don't think the middle of episode 1 was boring. If everything was high action all the time, then THAT gets boring. To have meaningful character arcs, you need to establish characters. My favorite show of all time is Band of Brothers, and there are plenty of "down" scenes. Without that, it's impossible to have great up scenes.