I think a lot of the criticisms thrown at this game are either coming in bad faith or just plain wrong. Spec Ops: The Line isn't telling you you're an asshole for playing the game that you've bought, it's just asking you questions about actions that you would take for granted in most games, and no, it's not doing that to reach some childish conclusion of "you're a MONSTER for shooting people in videogame".

Ultimately all art is subjective but it pains me a bit to see people writing Spec Ops off as some pretentious game that thinks it's way smarter than it is without really trying to actually consider what it's trying to say rather than jump to the most immediate conclusion.

I also think that even if you don't care for the meta stuff, the story of Captain Walker holds up extremely well on its own. Uh, gameplay kinda sucks, though I love a lot of the little details like Walker getting more unhinged in his combat animations as the game progresses.