Other than a few trivial things and some small annoyance with the combat, there is one aspect in the game which is a large reason why the game does not measure up for me as much as I'd like, and that is its lack of depth of its major themes. For a game that takes up the concept of American exceptionalism, religion, racial segregation, economic inequality, jingoism, etc. there is a serious lack of depth in them and we are in the end given very little reason to become emotionally invested in anything or anyone other than Elizabeth. The entire population of Columbia is very static and shallow. Aside from the general portrayal we get from them, everything is left on the surface which in turn makes it hard to describe the overall population of the city. We know basically nothing about any of their lives or stories. And that is quite a major flaw, considering Rapture in contrast, managed to tell countless back-stories about broken families, splicing addictions, ADAM scientists, objectivism vs collectivism, and more. Personally, Rapture felt a lot more alive than Columbia did, despite the fact that almost the whole population was dead or insane.
Aside from general viewpoint of people being treated badly, the racial tension is almost non-existent. There are barely no stories of alienation, of intersectional oppression, of white supporters, of morally conflicted businessmen, of rallies and protests, and more. All we ever see are a few racially oppressed people working in washrooms and scrubbing the floors in one or two buildings. And considering how utterly devoid of depth or personality the Vox Populi supporters were, I question why racism was ever included as a theme in the first place. The Vox could have been an angry rebel group fighting for just about anything and very little would change. The game does a poor job in trying to define the views, practices and actions reflecting the belief that humanity is divided.
What annoys me even more is the disappointing portrayal of the two leading characters in the game. Despite everything of Comstock's overzealous preaching--the structure of the religion (which is a hybrid of Christianity and the worshiping of the Founding Fathers) and remaking of the ideological world--it is generally with little substance. Compared to Ryan and Lamb, who not only clearly expressed their motivations and philosophies and actually had personalities, Comstock's is basically non-existent. And Fitzroy is equally as poor, or perhaps worse since she lacks any real character progression. In the first universe she is portrayed as one who pursues equal rights, yet in another universe she entirely lacks morality and one who becomes corrupted by power. Of course it's possible that she would have turned into this in the original timeline as well, but alas the game didn't even try to explain it. At least the game managed to flesh out her to some extent thanks to the Voxophones. The only character (expect for Booker and Elizabeth) I enjoyed was Fink.
Despite these flaws, I still very much enjoy Infinite and I do consider it one of my favorite FPS games. But I do hope the DLCs can put a more focus on these aspects.
