Haven't played it in a while, but I can honestly say that no other game in recent memory has made me want to 100% it 4 times in under a year. I think the last time it has happened was when TW2 came out.
There is something about the story, characters, Night City and gameplay that makes it so addictive.
CP 2077 is in a tie with Deus Ex (the first one) with my most played single player story driven game, I have done three playthroughs in each. There's though that with Deus Ex there were years between and last time I played that was when there was high resolution texture pack released by modders for it. I sometimes though about it later but ended up listening to soundtrack via Youtube.
I played prequels but I'm not that person anymore who was exited about Deus Ex, it's been 22 years or so.
CP 2077 then, it has these things related to things in my adult life. Though I had never been able to make 100+ hours playthroughs if not pandemic, certainly don't regret it. I was really surprised. Only other game I can think is as strong on story department is the Outer Worlds.
I'm sorry, do we know eachother, personally? Games stories are mostly very shallow. No matter Square Enix (Deus Ex is not really good stortywise), or other studios. Compared to books and movies, most of them have laughable stories. B class movie at best, when you're generous.
I've played Metal Gear Solid 1 recently, still masterpiece, and very enjoyable, but story, for me it's almost camp, often was smirking how nonsense it was, that's why I enjoyed it - was not serious about story. Plenty of games is like that and Hideo and his fantasies are not really some bad example, he loves 80's action movies and you can see it, but what he makes story-wise is often closer to "Universal Soldier" than "Blade Runner".
So yeah Cyberpunk storywise is pretty much outstanding compared to other games, maybe one day you will understand it, if not, your loss.
Most games I play are silly stuff, not everyone game even has a plot really and I enjoy them because I don't need to get involved in story that's not interesting anyway. Something though, I recall Wolfenstein games since Wolfenstein 3D and then I played through those new games about a year ago or so and they had quite a bit new take on story in a shooter game. Wow... things sure has changed. But I don't know, I think they were very good shooters after all.
I don't really believe in industry, I got CP 2077 as early 2020 Christmas present from my sister who knows my fondness to genre (the cyberpunk). Something worth to mention is Outer Worlds, which writing was good, very good in adult sense. I have been thinking if there's need to find a new way to evaluate story driven games. I haven't played most of the games I see mentioned in discussions here and never going to, but I have played some. I think Mass Effect trilogy, in first part they had this curious thing with Geth and if you know about 1, 2, 4,8, 16... related to real life singularity theory and some other things going on as well and then AFAIK they gave actual science guys a boot and series went to different things (I mean think sentence regarding Normandy in ME1 and and ME3 "
Who is screwing with the ship AI?" and you get something very different with ME1 and ME3.
But still, there were some plotlines that covered ethics, though they never used that word and in the package there were different things, I think shooting bottles with Garrus is for many one of the iconic gaming moments, perhaps for younger audience then and now. I think ME3 had serious identity crisis what it wanted to be despite ending debate though. CP 2077 then, it very much potential to reach entire new audiences especially among people who left story driven games as they grew up and games didn't, which sort of doesn't reflect well towards game media as a form of expression.
Thinking about the whole gaming culture, it's about more and more and it's totally unappealing to people who don't have time and whom needs for entertainment and escapism doesn't revolve around that. This happened to me when I tried to play Fallout: New Vegas. It looked from the start that world makes far more sense than in FO3, but then I had weekend to play that, then few hours during a week, then something came up, I struggled trough where I accidentally finished Caesar but there was more to play but I couldn't remember who is who and where and what NPC's here and there had said. There was a log but I didn't find it interesting to just do something because they were on a list when I didn't recall anything about what was going on with NPC's whom have given those tasks. It's utterly uneconomic form of entertainment, compared to shooting space monsters or zombies without a plot, thank God for games you can just forget!
CP 2077 is tightly knit enough and interconnected to make experience work for people in 40-50 hours and it has things to make people think to keep that thing going for that time investment. I didn't believe this kind of game would ever be made.