If you consider this game as a standalone entry, it is lackluster. Now, as an expansion of Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York, it adds a bit of flavor (nothing spicy more like a pinch of salt) and is a welcome conclusion to the events of the first entry Julia, the MC, is an improvement compared to Coteries even though is unable to have much agency in the story, as the paths you can take are not many and are set in stone but enough to consider it a character of its own, and I prefer that over a blank slate Shadows is engaging enough to want to explore the different choices and try to get different outcomes but you only get two (the bad ending was more of my liking), so there is not much replayability Nonetheless, all the positive things that I can say about the game are dependent on the previous entry. I was glad to see familiar faces in the characters that you encountered in Coteries, the universe feels cohesive in that way and is a plus in my book that you get to know more about their current whereabouts and what they have been up to. But without that, it is really hard to care about any of them, and the world that you get to explore suddenly feels small, which says a lot about a story that takes place in NYC IMO, it is worth the buy, as a bundle
