Sharply put, but relatively accurate.
Expectations help, though, as does the presentation. Comparing the game and the anime isn't going to result in a particularly useful lesson-set, reception wise, other than the obvious comparisons.
250 minutes of passive watching someone else tell you the story vs 10 to well, hundreds of hours of interacting with and creating a large portion of the story.
The relevance and immediacy, though, not only of the brutality but the constant economic and societal pressure - now, that, that as you've said, is a big part of what makes the anime hit home for most people.
"Am I human?" I mean...how much does that really matter?
"Will I be hungry/hurt/even alive tomorrow?" Yeah, we all get that.
Street level stories are great, done right. The higher stuff is, too, and as Shin says, series like GitS are classics in a large part -because- of those questions.
But street level hits home for most of us.