Just got through my second run of Alpha Protocol, and I gotta say. You know what?
I really do think most of the crappy reviews are by people who haven't really sat down and played the game.
Yeah, the AI is dumb (stop charging me when I have a shotgun, morons), and the controls (particularly the cover mechanics) occasionally spaz out. But the actual action is solid, if somewhat basic, the leveling actually matters a great deal as far as what you can do, unlike some other games coughcoughMassEffect2coughcough, and it's actually worth going through multiple times, which is good, because it's rather short.
First time I went through, I Solid Snake'd it. No kills, no alarms, no alerts, executed all the big bad guys in cutscene (FOR GREAT JUSTICE), saved AMERICA (fuck yeah), you name it. That play style lent itself towards slow, tense exploration and a lot of waiting and memorizing patrol routes.
Second time. . .I just went 'yeah fuck it' and shot everyone in the head with an assault rifle. Except for the civilians who are just doing their job because I am terrible at being an asshole. Bv
So all in all, good game. Flawed, but the story, characters, action (sometimes) are all more than enough to redeem it.
Disclaimer: My experience is based entirely off of the XBox 360 version, and I may make no claims as to the quality or lack of bugs in other versions.
