Sexuality is important topic but from industry perspective, pandering to certain specific audience might lead to a problem in 20 years or so.
By the way, speaking about the scenes, I found it really awkward that the pre-romance conversation scenes are the same for male/female V. Especially awkward with River and Kerry.
That spot River chooses is so 100% right into your face romantic that if he takes you there and then backs up, it just feels funny. Playing with a female V, the moment I saw the tower I was like "OK, got it" (his sis didn't even have to spoil anything). Same with Kerry -- if he took you to the balcony to have a drink, OK, but all this standing so close to one another, just the two of you, and Kerry's so vulnerable -- *sigh*.
I completely don't mind having the option "kiss" pop up for V to be rejected, but the super-romantic setting is sending a wrong message imo
You know what, I wouldn't have minded so much if it weren't for the way they handled the heteroflexibility. It just doesn't work as a game mechanic for me.
If River had been 100% straight and flat out inaccessible to a male-voice acted V I would actually have thought that other than being led on it's an accurate depiction of a gay guy falling for a straight guy. V is portrayed as gay tastefully and understandably let to believe it's a romantic situation and even though the rejection is super awkward, there's no judgement or homophobia in it. On paper that's almost praiseworthy.
And as disappointed as I would have been, I wouldn't seek out to mod it, I've modded Dragon Age: Origins to have an m/m romance with Alistair a few times but it never feels quite right. It's a fun little diversion but it's not part of my 'one true canon' because there's something off about it, you know. Now I'll mod in the Kaidan romance for Mass Effect 1 but that actually gets acknowledged in 3 so I'm not making any undue alterations there.
Wonky execution and real world issues just make it an unfortunate combination of things here.
As I said in an earlier post I think playersexual is the way to go. Maybe the character your shacking up with is bi? Maybe they're exclusively into your gender? It allows for immersion, interpretation and doesn't exclude anyone. Set sexualities are fine don't get me wrong but they just need to be a bit more set than they are here. Or else this happens.
Maybe we can safely call Cyberpunk's romance system divisive.
An unrestricted character creator would solve the River and Panam situation. Pick the torso that allows access to the romance path and then take your boobs off to romance River or put them on to romance Panam whilst getting to look a way that you identify with since voice and pronouns aren't a factor in those two romances.