Finally gave this game a try in 2024, after hearing again and again how brilliant its story was and how much of a model it should be for the future of games...
Well, I was underwhelmed...
To be honest, I didn't have too high expectations for the gameplay, I was mostly looking forward to the development of the relationship between the two main characters.
It does happen gradually enough to be believable, and a few scenes do hit their marks to pull at your heartstings...

But, at the end of the day, I did force myself to push through, "because it's a classic". Early on, I did pull up a full playthrough on YouTube to compare how far I actually was in the game, looking forward to the end.

It's hard for me to put words on why exactly the game didn't click (haha, click) for me, because I don't think it was a bad game. Maybe if it wasn't heralded as a masterpiece of modern gaming, I'd probably just have thought it's not a game for me, and I'd have passed, without much more thought to it...

TL;DR : Not a bad game, but to me at least, underwhelming seeing its reputation.