It's an interesting decision to allow you to choose your gender in a point and click adventure game, but it means they decided to cut the voice acting for the main character (rather than recording two sets). You also get to choose a choice of backgrounds which gives a different intro to the story, although these scenes are brief. The Director's Commentary cites Dragon Age as an inspiration. Unless you replay the game, you will be missing out on some content.
Another way the game branches is that the game is split into several missions (Brooklyn, Staten Island, Chinatown, Wall Street, The Bronx) and some can be played in a different order. You gain new characters when completing some of these, and you choose 2 companions in each mission (and can't be switched until the next mission). This means you will miss out on dialogue and some optional content.
Your companions have abilities which give you alternate options of solving the puzzles. You start off with Eli and Mandana. Eli is a Fire Mage so can set fire to objects, and perform "Fire Reading" which allows him to view any object that he knows has been burned. Mandana is half jinn and half pirate and can detect when people aren't truthful, is strong and agile, and excels with a sword. Logan is a Bestower who can communicate with ghosts with the help of his Spirit Guide Kay-Kay. Vicky is a cop who can use a gun so is not as interesting, but can be quite useful.
Your party of characters is a group called the Unavowed who aim to stop evil (kinda like a
Men in Black organisation), so investigate demons and anything paranormal. Your character was possessed by a demon and committed a few murders. Once you are relieved of the possession, you join the Unavowed with the aim of tracking down the demon.
In each scene, there's a lack of things to interact with which makes puzzles very easy. Instead of having to right-click to inspect, you just hover. There's no "look at", "use", "pick up" or anything like that. It's as streamlined as can be. Maybe it is too streamlined. The cursor clearly shows what is important: blue is move, white is pick-up, red means you can't interact, or if it is a character then red means speak for some reason. I found myself just ignoring everything and just clicking on things that had a white icon. You can hold the right-mouse button to highlight the appropriate hotspots too, so you never have to look at anything irrelevant.
You normally have a couple of items in your possession at any time, which means it's quite obvious what to do with the objects. Many sections are purely driven by dialogue rather than items anyway. It seems more story-driven or aimed at players unfamiliar with the genre.
I think there was a Backwell game which was criticised for having many password puzzles, and Dave Gilbert is at it again here. It doesn't seem very realistic when so many passwords are "easily guessed" passwords like DOB, pet name etc with no numbers or special characters to make them harder to brute force. There's a couple based on riddles too which could frustrate some people.
2 puzzles involve causing water to overflow using a cloth. I’m not sure how fast something will overflow when a cloth is permeable. One of those instances is near the start of the game, which you could argue is actually one of the most complex puzzles.
If you aren't sure where to go, you can ask your companions. They don't drop strong hints to the solution but do tell you a general place or person you should be focussing on.
There's a big plot twist which is a bit mind bending when you then think back to remember if the character acted consistently with this new information.
If the start of the game was influenced by Dragon Age, maybe you could say the ending is like Mass Effect 2. If you have saved the demons throughout the game, you can summon them, and if not, you use your party members to progress in each room to get to the final showdown. It ultimately doesn't make a difference, because you face the end solo; but it gives you the illusion your choices matter, and you are working as a team.
It's set in the Blackwell universe, however ghosts look way more evil, and you are told they are geist (poltergeist). Later on you meet the ghost Kay-Kay who is nice-natured and drawn just like she is in the Blackwell series. So it seems like only geists have this new evil look. Then there is a scene where you see human spirits and they are rendered like the geists and not like a nice spirit; which might be an oversight.
Compared to other Wadjet Eye games, this is a step up on visual clarity. It looks like it was designed for widescreen and the visuals are a bit clearer.
I really enjoyed the concept and the characters, so it works well as a visual novel, but then as a point-and-click adventure - it's not great.