It is but its a bit rough even if you plan your starting attribute spread around it. The easiest way to go early game blades is to start with 6 reflexes and take Flight of the Sparrow immediately with your first 2 perks. Go to Cassius in Northside as soon as you have about 9k eddies and buy the uncommon Dynalar Sandevistan, then stop by Instat Implants in Kabuki to pick up some Sandevistan heatsinks for the cooldown reduction.
You also need Shifting Sands 3/3 ASAP otherwise the stamina cost of attacking and dodging is just too much to take on more than 2 enemies at once. Taking 3 that are armed with guns is hairy, even with reboot optics/cripple movement support.
I need to do a new pass over the early game to see what non combat Watson gigs are still available from the beginning.
The Gift, Woman of La Mancha, Freedom of the Press and Backs Against The Wall were all super helpful early game to get 2 levels quickly without needing to engage in combat.
In the early game you never want to hyper focus on one style of play. You want to get in some grenade kills (any situation where enemies are standing near a car or other type of explodable is a free grenade kill). You also want to get in some Reboot Optics with your starter deck, breach some access points around Kabuki and get some handgun kills. Quickhacking/Breach Protocol/Engineering/Handguns level 2 gives you 4 free perk points. And you will get another 1 when you get Blades 3.
Another thing you need real early is Advanced Datamine 2/2 and street cred 12 because you can generate an enormous amount of early game cash from gig access points. 3 to 4 times more cash than the Fixer gives you for completing the gig.
The main early game cyberware you want to get ASAP is Reinforced Tendons (from Vik), Memory Boost and Biodyne MK2 (from Cassius Ryder) or Stephenson Tech MK2 (from Dr Chrome). The decks require 12 street cred but they will last you until the 40 street cred legendary decks or the top Sandy (which is a ways off). You need the deck to reliably farm access points for datamine level 3 and 2.