Had all the trappings of RPGs I've liked in the past- great writing, characters, the ability to impact the world you find yourself in; as I found myself reaching what I figured was the end of the first or second act, I thought- this is going to be really great. Then the game ended. After 13 hours. I must stress that for the time I played it, this game was really quite good. I enjoyed the dialogue that you could have with facets of your character, the lack of combat, and the interactions you could have with other characters in your role as a detective. I like me some text, and the game has quite a lot of it. I'm a fast reader, so it wasn't a problem for me. The world was interesting, and there were plenty of exciting moments. But the game clearly has pacing issues- I ran out of stuff to do by the 4th day, despite very thoroughly exploring the map and completely emptying what passes for the game's quest log. The game is meant to run for approximately 7 days and is marketed as being about 60 hours long, but I was pushed into the endgame by this dearth of content and the fact that some of it (definitely *not* 47 hours worth) was gated behind decisions I didn't want to make (such as working for the corrupt union official) or skill checks I was never going to pass. It's conceivable that I accidentally missed huge chunks of the game- but it's the fault of the game for making that possible in the first place despite the efforts I made to be thorough. I'm not bitter about the money I spent on it- I've played the game, that's that. But the fact remains that, in reaching the ending *so quickly*, being shunted back to the main menu after only a fraction of the time it would take to complete any of the game's peers in the genre- Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Pillars of Eternity, Divinity Original Sin- the game was ruined for me. I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth, the fault of terrible pacing that left me expecting much out of this supposedly colossal game.
