This game is difficult to assess — on one hand, it offers a considerable amount of choice, and goes to great lengths to make it feel like your decisions have impact. It also gives you freedom to think through the investigation yourself, even if it does mean that you end up solving the big mystery in Act 1, and have to wait until the end for the characters in the game to figure it out, as I did... The game also explores potent and complex themes, with believable characters — however, going into detail here would not be feasible, and would spoil the main draw of the game for prospective players, so I shall restrain myself.

At the same time, the gameplay itself can be a drag — it is pretty much just reading, and the prose is not particularly interesting, largely due to the fact that most all text is dialogue. The pacing also suffers in the third act, as you are not really investigating anything anymore, and it becomes more of a checklist for you to fill out whilst the game shows off how much impact the decisions in the first two acts had... the third act is the longest in the game.

I have already mentioned my main gripe with the plot, but I feel that it bears repeating: I quickly figured out that there was a major suspect whom the game would not let me accuse, and as the game kept going, the evidence just kept piling up and the characters would not acknowledge it until the big reveal at the end. It was kind of infuriating.

Overall, I like this video game — the graphics are good, the freedom of choice and the genuine detective work serve it well, and it does discuss many interesting things outside of the main murder mystery. It also has no combat, which saves it from being absolutely awful to play; A fate which befell Tyranny, the other Obsidian RPG I have played.