I'm about 15 hours into a second playthrough and this is just patently not true. There isn't much variety in character building outside of combat mechanics, you pretty much always play the same V as far as narrative and dialogue goes. I was doing a second playthrough just to see how different things could be and intentionally looked for dialogue I hadn't seen the first time, my experience was that it showed how on-rails 99% of the experience is. At this point, I'll pick it up again in a year or two when they've added some content and hopefully fleshed out the open world somewhat.

>I see people going on a murder rampage in cyberpunk and then complain that the police chase that spawns isn't sufficiently realistic. Like......I don't feel like that's how this game should be played

I mean, then why are you able to go on a murder rampage and get in a police chase? It's just a basic level of competence that the game doesn't have. Park your car in the street and come back after the mission to find a huge traffic jam because the AI is incapable of driving around your car. Accidentally hit a civilian during a shootout with the local gang? Cops will just spawn 10 ft away from you and continue spawning until you die unless you get in your car and drive for 15 seconds.

Maybe you're lucky and the way you play doesn't expose you to a lot of the things people are complaining about but it seems kind of silly to dismiss complaints of game mechanics as "you're doing it wrong".

Unfortunately they're wrong... the game very cleverly designs some of the dialog or mission choices in a way that makes it seem like your choices affect the outcome, but in the end there is only one single choice in the entire game that affects the ending. And even for the side missions and other dialog, it turns out that almost every single choice will direct you to the exact same path/outcome anyway. They might give you very slightly different dialog responses from the NPCs, but that's about it.

All of the "choice" in this game can be summed as:

Character asks you to do something. Your responses are:

1) Sure, I'll do that

2) Sure, I'll do that but my response is going to be snarky

3) Sure, I'll do that but you need to give me more information first

4) No, I don't want to do that, but you're going to tell me that I can't refuse you so I'll end up doing it anyway

5) No, I don't want to do that right now but you'll message me later and I'll find out that I can't progress any further without calling you back and saying yes

It's very shallow "choice", and I personally don't get any entertainment from that level of "replayability".

I think you're probably right, I'm 25 hours in and I haven't been in a single fight with police other than one scripted side mission. That's kind of what I meant - in GTA I just start going on a rampage randomly because it's a fun thing to do, seeing how the city reacts around you. In Cyberpunk I just haven't felt the need at all, there's too much focus on the story.

Most character skills are damage addons. If you don't pick assault rifle, your going to have a pretty slow time. Crafting is pointless, augments are just another skill tree.

'The way it's meant to be played' was the same apologetics we got with No Man's Sky on launch. Like three people wanted to play NMS as an empty grind-a-thon in a chill atmosphere that goes nowhere.

Cyberpunk failed to finish development. We all know it, why the rub?

And you're wondering why people are angry? It's your prerogative to cut CDPR as much slack as you wish, but let's not pretend that those who don't do that are in the wrong.

I am 41 hours in and it definitely feels like cyberpunk GTA. Very much so.

They literally said immersive huge open world in their marketing videos. If you say open world, you're comparing yourself to Grand Theft Auto 5, and you goddamn well better deliver.

They didn't and now they're suffering.