I've been rather curious about trying the Syndicate games for a while since I'm a
real fan of Cyberpunk but I want to know which game is more worthwhile playing
in terms of gameplay and storyline.

Thanks.

Syndicate Wars, it has improved gameplay, full destructible environment and 2 factions with different campaigns oriented on storyline. More variety in weapons, gadgets and enemies makes it fun to play + has unique music. Even more dystopia than first game. Welcome to the world with no future and neither Eurocorp nor Church of the New Epoch is the good side but there can be only one winner on the corpses of the many. ;-)

Okay. But is it true that you can only take control of nations and force them to pay taxes in the first Syndicate game?

Well, it's true but this is not working perfect, time moves faster during mission time, while on map screen it takes real time hours and days. In Wars you have crisis situation so nobody will pay you and you need steal money, rob banks, persuade things and sell stuff + time moves only during missions (but since in first game real time is sooo lazy and during mission faster it's not big difference). Much harder but also more fun and creative than first game. ;-)

Both games shine in their own ways. Also, the original has aged very well, the graphics are still good,
which isn't the case with every game I enjoyed in the days of yore. I'd say you're doing nothing wrong,
if you start with Syndicate and when you're finished, continue with Syndicate Wars. I found this very
rewarding. As for the story, I enjoyed the reading the mission texts in both games, they're very well done.

I'd pick the first over Syndicate Wars, UNLESS you happen to have a friend willing to coop with you... although the Genesis version of the original also had coop, and was absolutely wonderful...

I can't work with the sequel. Syndicate Wars is not my cup of tea. Syndicate is though.
Maybe it's just a matter of clunky controls that don't work well in Syndicate Wars.

The original is better. Its concept, gameplay and graphics are much clearer and more solid than in Wars which is more like a schoolbook example of how a new leap in processing power made developers do silly things to their games, sacrificing everything else just to hop on board the 3d graphics bandwagon.

The first is the better:
In the sequel the devs tried to fix the small flaws, but they destroyed the features by the way..
The sequel seems better in theory, but if you played the 1st, you will be disappointed.
As the sequel is worst, okay start to play it, and then play the 1st game: you'll see that even the 1st seems lacking in some features, it is far more fun.

It'll be hard to appreciate Syndicate now. The gameplay isn't particularly great, but it was groundbreaking for it's time.

Here's my breakdown of Syndicate & SW:

Syndicate
+ brilliant graphics & sound
+ detailed, realistic city environments
+ memorable intro

- brutal, unbalanced difficulty
- awkward pathfinding / vehicles, obstructive scenery
- repetitive missions

Syndicate Wars
+ good story, v. good worldbuilding
+ refined gameplay
+ environmental destruction

- different tone: a little more cartoony and sci-fi
- small, flat cities: no tunnels, railings, rooftops, walkways, etc
- traditional weapons aren't as unsatisfying

Overall: Syndicate feels more grounded, but the improvements in SW make it a lot more interesting and less frustrating.

SyndWars. Improves on everything except world detail but I find that forgivable as this is an early venture into 3D graphics under limited processing power. I remember running this game on a pre-pentium machine.

Hands down the original. Syndicate has always been about the immersion for me and SW had nothing close to the same feel. Personally I have always felt the SW concentrated on graphics over gameplay.

Immersion was probably the biggest problem I had with SW initially: it felt like an action spin-off, environments were simpler, more sci-fi elements were introduced...but looking past that, I'd say the gameplay was better in almost every respect.

I don't think SW was more focused on graphics (it looked markedly worse than the original). Playing it now I feel they did everything they could to further the gameplay and to get the most out of the technology. It was also created by a new team with a lot to live up to. Sure, mistakes were made, and it probably didn't live up to the original in terms of how revolutionary and immersive that game was for it's time, but it's still a great game and a good sequel.

I like first one better, because the SyndWars does feel sometimes that it wants to kill you in cheesy ways. And both games are brutally hard, but when I played first one I kept reading the walk-through because sometimes there would be no indication that there's something that needs to be done in order to finish the mission. Granted I never finished either of the games, but it is still very very good games.
Overall - go for the original first. Or buy the whole bundle. Be warned tho - GOG version of SyndWars is kinda fiddly.