The arguments in defense for Alphail Protoshit are ridiculous, as expected from blind Obsidian fanboys.
Obsidian's best game and an underappreciated classic
Am I at NeoGAF or Obsidian Forums by mistake? There is nothing classic about it, and rather than underappreciated, it is vastly overrated within the Codex by the usual suspects.
AP was released after the first two Mass Effect games, and it is best understood as a direct response to (and vastly superior copy of) those braindead corridor shooters of fake choice and minimal consequence.
It is not a "better" clone or response to Mass Effect, and even if it were, a better shit still is as much of a shit as the worse shit. And even were I to disregard my opinion popamole cover shooters are intrinsically and inevitably shit games because such is an inherently bad mechanic that handicaps a game so those handicapped by their own stupidity and by gamepads filled with residues of Doritos and Mountain Dew can enjoy it better without feeling frustrated they cannot unlock an achievement, its other nextgen features such as minigames and checkpoint railroads remain as terrible as ever.
Alpha Protocol's obnoxiously vocal detractors claim that its boring, glitchy, and often infuriatingly unbalanced stealth and combat gameplay (particularly heavily inspired by ME) is a major flaw. This is not true, because AP's core gameplay revolves around manipulating people through dialogue, tweaking your mission parameters by picking the best (or most hilarious) handler for the job, choosing the order of your high-priority missions to maximize (or minimize?) the body count, and generally deciding exactly what shade of cool you are.
Alpha protocol is a cover shooter first and foremost, a try for Obsidian to gain a slice of the dudebro popamole console market where Gears of Wars, at the time, were the king, stop deluding yourselves. To say the core of a game where you'll spend most of your time shooting in horrible combat system or watching cutscenes that often steal player agency is about manipulating people through an equally bad dialogue system is seriously deceptive and dishonest.
unparalleled reactivity and nonlinearity
Alright, I'll stop quoting those blatant lies aware the writers are so blinded in their fanboyism they will never wake up, and just get to the general point: there is almost nothing good about Alpha Protocol. Behold some of its features:
Shit and frustrating minigames, clipping bugs that force you to replay that bad mission another time because the character got stuck, almost 100% linear, horrible level design where almost always the only possible "stealth" is a special invisibility "skill" with cooldowns(except for a single mission in a CIA base of operations in Rome), character advancement based on popamole skills with cooldowns and uncreative boosts, NPC conversation system with EXTREME/Suave/Neutral/Etc and QTE, cutscenes removing player agency, heavy scripting, popamole combat with the expected incompetence of Obsidian in designing action, checkpoint system that gives away how linear and consoletarded it ultimately is, and then to crown this pile of turd:
Fucking Quality Choices and consequences such as a few less moles to pop in a Rome mission if Shaheed is spared and the change in the color of the uniform of the dudebros who support Thorton Shepard in another session of popamole in a certain mission depending on which side is picked, so ridiculous, cheap and lazy to the point even the scripted spawn locations for the soldiers of the two factions available to pick are the same no matter which side you choose.
I couldn't give a fuck on how a cheap voice acted broadcast without any video explains how things ended differently because of dialogue choices in conversation QTE in the ending. A character that gets boned once and Thorton Shepard barely cares about vs. the lives of hundreds in Rome, and no real fallout, genial C&C, Obsidian, and I could continue listing on and on but I think this suffices for anyone not blinded in fanboyism.
That is how this excremental piece truly is. If it was a only CYOA book or CYOA E-Book, it would be decent, but as a game and the sum of all its parts, it is shit and its story is severely overrated as well, being passable at best and below mediocre at worst, while some of its characters outdo the obnoxious ones from that shit Old World Blues New Vegas DLC.
tl;dr Alpha Protocol is the most overrated piece of shit in the Codex.