I would suggest finishing. It's a good game in it's own right, but more specifically the events of the ending directly inform the state of the world in MD.

It's one of the reasons I was so happy with the last Deus Ex.

You can run all over Prague and a huge number of buildings are explorable - and there is content there. Dozens of individual personal stories you can look into and sometimes play a part in.

Really made it feel more like a living city.

A screenshot of a room from the Gameboy Color game Depths of Europa, showing the interior of an under-sea station.

Making progress on the second episode of Depths of Europa; this is the entrance room in the new station that will be introduced there (Arboretum/Hydroponics).
The tiled background will parallax horizontally; places where it seems to overlap are done with sprites.

Binary Star

I strongly suspect this comic was made solely so he could make the joke in the alt text.

How the world and the story sticks with me even when I'm not playing.

I love that I have moments working on my own stuff where I stop and try to work out a timeline, or question whether a certain character is who we assume they are or just another of many variants.

That's fair; our history kinda speaks for itself. Most Americans have no idea what that history even is, as bad as that is.

That lack of awareness is a big part of how we got here so fast. As hopeless as the current situation has me feeling, maybe we come out of it a better people, and more aware.

I haven't seen any criticism for that. It seems like a perfectly apt comparison to me.

I'm not sure I actually agree that it isn't less free. I see your point, but from a practical perspective I think I would say it is in fact less free.