One of the funny things about this game is how people describe it so differently. It's a FPS, with RPG elements. It's a first person RPG, with shooter elements. It's a stealth game with a subversive message. It's a puzzle-oriented action adventure game. It's an open world socializing game, where knowing the right people makes all the difference. It's a survival horror game, with occasional breaks for munchies. How do you reconcile all of those perspectives? By saying, yes, it is. This game really did try to do it all, and pretty much succeeded. The best part, for me, was that although you could play through it several times in different ways, you could also (if you were determined and attentive), actually do several styles of gameplay in the same play through. You could sneak in the back way, set things up, sneak back out, and then go in guns blazing. It was a lot of fun do that, try to find every path before finishing an area; take out every last enemy, bot, and creature; hack every single thing you find; read all of the back story intel, and interact with every possible character. Then you understand the scope of this game, and how, unlike RPGs that just overload you with "lore," everything you find, read, and do is immediately integral to your game experience. If you have not yet played this game, and you are not the type to let 14-year old graphics (which were pretty hot, at the time) ruin it for you, what are you doing reading this review?
