I know I wasn't supposed to, but I enjoyed the hell out of Alpha Protocol.
So what do we have here? Dated graphics, less than stellar voice acting, annoying camera quirks... I spent about fifteen minutes here trying to remember any more negatives and could only come up with the vague dissatisfaction I felt towards the way the game was structured with hubs and missions. They completely eliminated any kind of commuting other games force upon you - you basically turn the door knob and wake up at the start of the mission - but in doing so they lost some immersion in my opinion. But really, that's it.
It ran stable. It did not crash once to my desktop. The combat is NOT atrocious. The weapon and upgrades variety is not bad. The minigames are so so. The story is decent. The levels are interesting. The RPG system is pretty good. The character interactions and the dialogue system are awesome. The choices you make feel more meaningful than in any other game I played probably since the Witcher. And that includes Mass Effect and Dragon Age.
The missions are varied enough to keep you going and follow the logical development of the plot, rather than dumb difficulty upcurve. I did growl in frustration a few times the game kicked my ass, because I felt that if it was an FPS I would have owned that boss, but not at any point did I want to give up on the game because of that.
And after finishing it as a spy in about 25 hours, I immediately wanted to go back and play it again in a completely different way, which is actually possible.
Too bad the reviews pretty much killed any chance of a sequel. With a bit higher budget and some extra time Alpha Protocol could have become Obsidian's ticket out of studio-for-hire closet. There is certainly a lot to like here, and I hope Chris Avellone and company do not get discouraged and continue to look for their own IP.
In the end, all I know is that I haven't written a game review in over sixth months until now.
Did I mention I bought it for $7.50?