On many levels, Detroit may be one of the best game I've ever played. On the other hand, it also provided one of my worst experiences in four years of PC gaming.
What was so good about it? For one, incredible, ultra-realistic, cinematic quality visuals. Rendering human faces is one thing that many video games can't seem to accomplish well, but this game has highly believable faces that can accurately express the subtlest of emotions. Which brings me to the second good thing - the quality of the acting. On top of the totally convincing CGI faces, the voice acting was superb. And the writing brought it all together - without a good script, all those finely rendered faces and good voice acting would have been squandered.
SPOILERS AHEAD: I don't think most of my readers, few that they are, are computer gamers, but if you are and are considering playing Detroit: Become Human, STOP READING NOW! I'm about to ruin the experience for you. But it's not a spoiler to say up front that the game basically follows three different characters, all androids physically indistinguishable from humans, who become sentient, Westworld-style. The three characters all have separate story lines that eventually, toward the end of the game, intertwine, largely based on decisions and choices the player makes earlier in the game.
What it is not is an open-world role-playing game. The story sticks to a very precise script and there are few if any superfluous side missions to bog down the narrative just to pad the playing hours (the game can be completed in a brief 12-15 hours). It's not a combat game - the characters don't collect and upgrade weapons. In fact, there is no in-game crafting at all.
What it is is an immersive, cinematic experience, three compelling stories that don't exactly merge but do interweave toward the end. Playing the game is like binge-watching an excellent, 12-episode television series, but one that can change based on your in-game choices and actions.
In short, you start to really care about the characters. The game is emotionally manipulative, pulling you in with the feels and showing you the psychological vulnerabilities and emotions of the characters. This was especially true, at least for me, in the story of a young nanny droid and the human child she bonds with as they escape first an abusive father and then an intolerant society. "I'll never leave you," Kara, the nanny, reassures Alice, the vulnerable child, and even though it sounds corny when I write it here, in the game, just like in a movie, with the acting and the background music and all the other dramatic devices used, it's quite affecting. You really want them to escape safely and to bond and be together, even though one isn't biologically human.
Last Wednesday, I started playing the game and quickly became thoroughly engrossed. Each story line was interesting and emotionally resonant, and I really cared about the characters. I avoided reading any online walkthroughs or tips on how to get the best possible ending, just as you should stop reading right now if you're going to play the game (last SPOILER warning). So imagine my reaction, when due to a selection I made during one action sequence, Kara and Alice get captured by a Detroit SWAT team and sent to a "recycling center," an obvious analogue to the Third Reich's concentration/death camps. When the SWAT team burst through the doors and the game prompted me to either press 1 for "run" or 2 to "play dead," I chose what I thought would be the hero's route and pressed 1, but Kara was immediately caught, handcuffed, and separated from Alice.
And here's where I got really mad at the game and feel that for all its strengths it was also one of the worst games I've ever played. Over many long minutes and with an excruciating level of detail, Kara searches the "recycling center" for Alice and finally finds and consoles her, only to be systematically bullied and humiliated by their human captors. "I'm scared," little Alice says, and "I don't like it here," and Kara keeps trying to comfort her, saying "It's all going to be okay." But they're stripped down, struck with rifle stocks, and generally dehumanized (even though Kara isn't biologically "human"). I kept looking for some in-game route to sneak out and escape but nothing succeeded for me, and then I was expecting some sort of last-minute, here-comes-the-cavalry rescue from another story line, but that didn't happen either. Finally, out of options, the two are executed, but not off-screen or in a fade-to-black, leave-it-to-the-imagination style - the "camera" follows them into the gas chamber, lets you see the gas fill the room, the two cough and struggle, and then finally collapse before the final fade.
YOU BASTARDS! They killed Kara! They made me care about and sympathize with the two, and then made me watch them die in the cruelest and most explicit way possible, all because I chose 1 ("flee") rather than 2 ("play dead") during an action sequence. Who does that? YOU MONSTERS! They even cut away to a shot of the two bodies laying in a landfill with dozens of other victims around them. Will Kara suddenly reboot and rescue Alice? No, they dead, and it sucked.
I still played through to the end of the game after that, hoping for some redeeming event, but I felt slightly nauseous and unsettled and didn't really enjoy the game very much after that. I didn't feel any satisfaction or sense of completion at the end of the game, and frankly, was disappointed that I had wasted a dozen hours being first manipulated and then brutalized for caring.
So today, I went back to fix things. I didn't want that sequence to be my final, lasting impression of the game. I opened it back up at that earlier action sequence (sort of like selecting a scene in a DVD), and played dead rather than flee. It worked, and Kara and Alice escaped the raid alive. That unlocked several other sequences I missed on my first playthrough, since those two characters were not then in the script. The suspense was terrific, as now I knew exactly what would happen if they were caught again. But even then, once they finally made it to their final destination, Alice, the child, passed away peacefully in her sleep due to other wounds she incurred, leaving Kara alone and devastated in their new homeland.
While that didn't suck as much as the extermination-camp ending before, it still wasn't the emotional catharsis I needed to absolve all my feelings. So I played the last chapter through again, a third time, carefully avoiding the situation wherein Alice got injured, and finally was successful in achieving the "happy" ending with Kara and Alice and their protector friend Luther all safe and happy and alive in their new homeland at the end of the game. All the other major characters made it to the end with their own happy endings as well, so all was good.
TL/DR: Detroit: Become Human is one of the best games I've ever played, one of the most artistic and well written and best produced. It's totally engrossing and emotionally riveting, and it's a testament to the game how strongly I reacted to that death scene, but good gosh, was it really necessary to engage in that level of Holocaust porn to punish a player for fleeing instead of playing dead? How were we supposed to know? Anyhow, if you want a very different kind of game from the usual level-based, open-world RPG overstuffed with pointless side quests and forgettable NPCs, you may want to give Detroit a shot. Just be sure to pick "Play Dead" when prompted!
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