I see why people like this game so much but I think it doesn't leave up to its promise. After a few levels it starts to feel like the only interesting and/or challenging thing to do was exploring. The problem solving itself is trivial. I never ran out of healing, ammo, hacking thingies or lockpicks, so the game just became find the way forward and spend whatever you had to spend to get there. Halfway through I just started shooting all the enemies because I just wanted to get it over with.
That said, the way it makes you explore the levels and figure out where you are, what you need to do and where you need to go is almost unparalleled (even if there are some dogshit levels, mostly in the second half). Honestly it says a lot about how little progress there's been that this 20 year old game holds up as well as it does.
The story is very interesting too, it's a shame that some people will miss the point because of some unlucky coincidences that happened on those 20 years. My advice would be to treat the worldbuilding as it was: "what if all the conspiracies are true?". And not as an endorsement of any of them but especially not the more unsavory ones that appeared after it was released.
That said, the way it makes you explore the levels and figure out where you are, what you need to do and where you need to go is almost unparalleled (even if there are some dogshit levels, mostly in the second half). Honestly it says a lot about how little progress there's been that this 20 year old game holds up as well as it does.
The story is very interesting too, it's a shame that some people will miss the point because of some unlucky coincidences that happened on those 20 years. My advice would be to treat the worldbuilding as it was: "what if all the conspiracies are true?". And not as an endorsement of any of them but especially not the more unsavory ones that appeared after it was released.