It's not a terrible game, but it is not very memorable either.

The loop is simple - go to Clearinghouse, buy all the intel, reply to emails, do a mission where you shoot worse than a blind man but so do the enemies, occasionally put in a 'hacker code' which you have to do both with keyboard and mouse where the keyboard one is slow and the mouse one is just buggy (controller was expected).

The writing is subpar - there are some good lines but more than a spy story it's written like what the authors think a spy story should be. It has a similar vibe to Yakuza games where the story is tense but you feel like your actions don't have any weight.

I like that some choices affect how the game progresses - that is probably the best thing about it.

Considering how old the game is, it is not as dated as I expected, but compared to something like Rainbow 6: Vegas which came 5 years earlier, it is pretty wonky.

Overall, I would give it a pass.

I've heard of this game for a long time and have always wanted to play it but never had the chance until recently. Firstly, I loved this game. The RPG genre has always been so stale to me. It's always about dragons and ♥♥♥♥. I like that this 007 type of feel this game has. You actually feel like a spy and your choice do matter. It plays a lot like mass effect 1 so be prepared for a lot of jank. Lots of people will rip the combat but I found it to be a lot of fun. Not necessarily challenging but more so like a puzzle. The progression is fantastic. First mission you're barely able to hit anything moving and constantly tripping alarms, but by the last mission you're head-shotting people from cover from a mile away.

This game is worth the money. It is dated but there are very few games that have attempted something so ambitious