I love how much of a cult following this game has, it's surprising just how many people have found this game and liked it. It had the worst sort of reviews, 7.0 things that made the game seem staid and unremarkable, the sort of thing hardly anyone would check out, but it seems like there's an ever growing number of people who played it and got to discovering all the good things that AP has to offer
I agree and yes, the complaining coming from various reviewers was especially weird.
I first heard about the game when Total Biscuit was doing a video on a Steam summer sale and he described it as "a lot like Bloodlines but bad" which immediately got me thinking "if it's a lot like Bloodlines, how can it be bad?". Someone in the comments of that video suggested I watch Angry Joe's review, which would supposedly prevent me from the crazy idea of trying this game.
So I watched Angry Joe's review and ... it was strange. He said he tried the game and loved it, then read other reviews which said the combat is broken, so he played it again and realized they're right. He said the combat is crap and demonstrated it by aiming the targeting reticle at someone's head and being frustrated that the shots didn't hit. Which for me, as an avid RPG player, immediately looked like he's misrepresenting the mechanics and not even steadying the shot. He also said stealth is broken and pistols are useless(lol). But what caught my attention most was his praise for the dialogue system and how it was one of the best he had ever seen, at which point I thought "Sold!".
Then, after playing the game, it was quite obvious the critics were talking out of their ass. Yes, the combat was the weakest part of the game(though the character movement animations were also terrible), but it's ALWAYS the weakest part in an RPG. People don't play these game for the combat, they play them for the story, which in this game was superb. It's like people saw a game that involves guns in a modern setting and mentally labeled it as a shooter, which it isn't. How the hell did anyone see the leveling system with separate skills for each gun type and then get upset for missing with a gun they didn't put any points into?
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Closest thing we'll ever see to a new Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines.
This game lacks polish in important places; the boss battles are just as bad, if not worse than those in Human Revolution; HR usually gives you an option of some kind (throwing the explosive barrels at Barret, for example) whereas the bosses in AP tend to require knowledge of how they work mechanically so the player can exploit map or AI flaws (having trouble getting away from Brayko when he snorts his coke? Just run around the center podium, he can't turn around it as fast as you can. I mean, DUH.) Out-of-cutscene animation is often ridiculous; watching everyone walk makes you think they all slept on the floor last night and woke up with stiff muscles everywhere.
And it's all worth it. Dialog choices are so important that even the Internet's biggest unprofessional asshole described it as the game just showing off. Any weapon can get you through the game if you actually have a brain about spending your skill points (if you're bad at RPGs, specialize in pistols, and you'll be fine.) Dialog and cutscenes change based on how skilled you are at certain things. Characters aren't just talking heads; they get involved enough to make you love or hate them depending on what kind of a person you're playing Mike as. It's impossible to make everything go your way in a single playthrough, but you can come close enough to be satisfied that the game isn't cheating you for the sake of fake re-playability or "realism." You can easily get four or five playthroughs that are radically different from each other in interaction alone, not counting the simple things like tackling missions and locations in different orders.
What irritates me consistently about reactions to this game isn't that some people don't like it, it's that so many who don't like it clearly played it for less than an hour and decided to be internet tough-guys about it. The amount of complaining that's outright incorrect about this game is staggering, and the winner is probably "the pistol is useless." Anyone who's even attempted stealth will tell you the pistol is the most overpowered weapon, in an arsenal that's overpowered.
AP is not nearly as good a shooter as Mass Effect. It is, however, a much better RPG. If you enjoyed Bloodlines or if you enjoy an action-oriented RPG that leans heavily enough on the RPG side that your character sheet is important, you'll like this game.