[SPOILER ALERT][LONG RANT]I just finally finished the game... 90h of gameplay, rid NC of all police scans, did almost all side quests (just left Kerry's storyline behind), went all the way with Panam, got to max level/SC.
My personal opinion: the mentality of "there can't be a happy ending in cyberpunk" is a mentality of someone who doesn't know what an RPG is. It's understandable, since many people generally play computer games, but no tabletop RPGs and are already used to the lack of variety and consequence of digital games' storylines. But this game is based on an actual tabletop RPG and it was announced as having a heavy choice-driven story.
That being said, I feel the game lacks variety in meaningful endings. There are actually 4 unique endings in this game, the rest are just little variations... and there is the suicide one, that to me is a non-ending. 2 of these endings are actually very grim and dark, as they should be. The Arasaka full committed is spot on (The surrender option), the variation is terrible. You go back to earth, and even if you romanced Panam and called her from the space station listening to her urging you to come home soon, you don't get an after credits message that indicates that you went away with her, which is awkward to say the least. The other ending I found to be very good is the Johnny ending, actually made me physically sick. The other endings are lacking.
Before I continue on my rant about the endings, I gotta say the BIGGEST flaw in them is the lack of impact that pursuing (or not) the silverhand side-quests has. Let's see:
1. Misty says one of the pills slows the process, but blocks Johnny and the other speeds it up, but let's him take control.
2. There are very few occasions when you can actually take the first pill and you never take the second unless you pursue Johnny's side quests.
3. In the end, no matter the choices, Alt says the changes made to the body by the chip AND the "aggressive, invasive medications" made your body uninhabitable to your own mind.
I mean... WHAT? What fucking medications are you talking about, when someone plays through without surrendering control of the body? This right here is the biggest hole in this mess CDPR made trying to pretend choices in this game matter.
Let's see the other endings. The merc ending is okish, with the very problematic lack of variation, especially since Kerry seems to be the only of the romance paths that doesn't end in break up (couldn't find the River one). Considering there is only one romance for every combination of the binary gender/sexual orientation pair, this is problematic.
Speaking of romance, it is very strange that only Panam and Judy's path offer an alternative to the merc path to stay with them. No settling down with River in the trailer park? No traveling on tour with Kerry? "The retire and enjoy the time left" endings are missing.
Now for the "good" endings, they are also ok, the Panam one being more meaningful in my opinion, finding a family in the Aldercados and the "open to an unlikely miracle cure" vibe. I just feel that even then, even when you dive the deepest into the relationships, it still leaves me with a feeling of distance between V and Panam (what's the problem they have with the L word?). But I guess this is more of a character development problem than the ending per se.
In summary, I feel like there should be at least double the amount of unique endings, and there definitely should be a LOT more impact of the choices made during the campaign. Some endings also need a little more polish. Overall this felt like a good story, but it's very, very ordinary. This is the word I would use to sum it up and this worries me a lot more than the bugs, because the bugs will be fixed by next year and I doubt we'll see any changes to the story.