This game really needed another 2 years of work before being released.
The game is full of issues that detract from the experience and should have been identified by even the most casual and brief playthrough during testing. Some are quite gamebreaking while others are purely cosmetic.
I also found the voice acting for Silverhand to be incredibly lacklustre, which was a shock given the name behind the voice.
A lot of the contents mentioned during the dev streams were removed. AI sucks, pointing a gun at someone who is inside the car does not trigger any response at all. Police suddenly spawns out of nowhere and for some reason does not use any vehicle. Car chase with shootouts are scripted, will have the same result whether you shoot or not. Hitting a traffic then rotating your camera to the point where the vehicle you've rammed can no longer be seen and rotating it back again magically repairs the dents in that vehicle and places it back in the road as if you've never rammed it. NPCs do not steer the steering wheel when steering. Customizations are limited compared to what was promised. Prologues does not matter, it is just a short 10 minute introduction and after that a rushed cinematic to make you care about someone who you are supposed to care for but since it is rushed, it is very hard to develop emotional attachment to said character. Character shadow movement looks like Woody from toy story. NPCs say the same thing over and over again. NPC mouths sometime doesn't move when talking to them. No water physics when you shoot or drive through them. Decisions barely make an impact on story except for some select few dialogue options. Children are like downscaled models of adults. No random encounters and many other immersion breaking bugs or features. The game promised immersion but feels like a half baked RPG. Would've understood it if the game was released 8 years ago but for a 2020 AAA game? Several other older games were able to do better except for its graphics. The only thing worth praising in the game is the graphics and the story but it is very hard to immerse yourself in the story when the game world is doing its best for you not to.
This is not an RPG. It's a mediocre action adventure. It's pretty shallow. There is no reason to explore the city beyond the places of the main story.
It's on the verge of being outright boring.
At patch level 1.23 I did not encounter severe bugs and glitches.
The game can be summarised in 2 words: wasted potential.
The teaser was revealed somewhere between FC3 and GTA5 releases (that was the first time I've heard of Archive and I enjoyed every last of their songs since then). And the game stayed true to 2013 while being released 3 weeks before 2021. With added "benefits" of being a console port.
UI is simply awfull, controls were designed for people with major chrome augmentations - 10 fingers with 11 digits each will do just fine, enemy AI and thrilling combat - nonexistent, likable characters - couldn't find any so far, crucial moment of the story - an hour of the most predictable and clishe tosh I've seen in years.
For 13 hours I've tried to find anything redeeming this "Best Role-playing Game of 2020 with no role-play in it" of the sin of being simply boring. To no avail.
Was it worth the money I've spent? Well, it costed and lasted as if I've watched 5-6 movies in cinema, so - yeah, I'm not applying for a refund even if I could. Was it worth the time, wait, hype, expectations? No, definitely not.