(EDIT 10/31/2014: I brought down the score by one. The multiplayer is very hard to get into without a password or dedicated server of friends. Despite a seemingly lavish stat-building, level-up system, there are underpowered abilities such as cybereyes, and even research that does actually nothing after you spend money and time on it. Seriously...nothing. The two overpowered weapons tempt me to highlight that as a flaw but I really can't. The weapons feel really, really good. This game will be inaccessible to many but it is very unique and wonderful.)
It's kind of a head-f***. There are giant robots, enemies with cyber-brains who you can shoot it out with as the gunplay is VERY realistic and satisfying or hack them.
Fail a hack and they hack you back, with some initially unpredictable results. Succeed and you can possess them. Imagine inhabitiing an enemy sniper's body and wreaking havoc from above? Or you can build up your cyber legs, leap to the sniper's perch and decapitate him with any number of swords.
There are also monsters running around made out of human emotions kind of like in Ghostbusters but you know, freakier. And factions to side with and or fight.
The penalty system can be unforgiving and frustrating but you can always turn down the difficulty if that helps. Me for instance...I am a slave to concept characters over say min-maxing for efficieny. Thus I take everything down with a sword, handgun and superpowered cyber eyes so I know what is around the corner. I keep difficulty down to protect myself from some of the permanent penalties the game dishes up. But there are other weapons that would make an easier difficulty too easy. It's all up to how you want to play.
Only complaint is confusion on getting co-op games going. Lag on co-op and some times very unpopulated co-op servers. Ones with players are often password protected and I don't have time to figure out how to make my co-op experience better these days.