People have been doing lots of videos on this game because instead of asking, "Do robots have souls?" it asks, "Why the fuck does education and medical care cost so much?"
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.