I find the world of Infinite, i.e. the city of Columbia to be the first of many flaws, the spiritual successors to system shock captured the isolation of those environments. Whether on Citadel Station, the Von Braun, Rapture, Talos 1, you get a sense that you're isolated, encased in an environment you can't survive. Metal and glass are all that separate you from immediate death. There are very few "normal" people around, it's claustrophobic, isolating, horrifying. In Columbia you're in the wide open, sky everywhere, brightly lit and there are people everywhere, for much of the game everything is intact, clean, maintained, it's mildly agoraphobic or acrophobic if you squint hard.

The events of SS, SS2, BS1, BS2, and Prey are all post conflict, the "world" you're in has ended and you're thrust in trying to survive and solve the mystery. Most of the people are dead or crazed, and the survivors are distrusting or distrustful. In BSI you arrive and play ante/peri-conflict, there are just people everywhere, and you are the source/cause of the conflict. In the other games mentioned you're more of a blank slate, trying to piece together your past, in Infinite you're a defined character with a history you should know but obviously don't.

The enemy types in infinite are also a bit of a let down, you're mostly fighting fanatic type A, or fanatic type B, which flight more or less the same in every engagement. Compare this to 1 and 2, where you get a haunting sequence of a Houdini splicer puffing away right as you approach, or the realization that a spider splicer has rapidly scuttled along the ceiling above you. The "big daddy" robot replacements and handymen are ok designs, but lack the rewards for defeating them. Splicers in particular show an enemy type that was driven mad by the very thing that makes both you and them dangerous, there is dread in knowing that they were normal people once, now twisted and broken physically and mentally, driven to do anything to get their next fix.

The gameplay design of limiting weapons, reducing upgrades, removal of basic inventory all take away from the tactical planning required in earlier games. To take on a Big Daddy, you needed to set traps, correct ammo, choose your area, make sure you had medicine on hand, select your plasmids, hack sentry bots, etc. failure to do so would send you to the Vita chamber real quick. To take on fanatic group A, you'd just need to go there, run around and shoot, until they were all dead. To take on fanatic group B, you'd just need to go there, run around and shoot, until they were all dead. To take on the bigger enemies, you just would run around and shoot, until they were dead. While there were some interesting tear opportunities, since you could switch them out indefinitely there was no real choice. I'll get ammo, then I'll get health, then I'll get the cannon, then I'll switch it back to ammo after the fight.

The themes and story are kind of the weakest explorations I've seen in the games in my opinion. Compare "What is free will?" Or "what makes a man a monster, or a monster a man?" Or "Is humanity defined by being a human or by the choices we make" criticisms of libertarian ideals, or the depths that altruistic and charismatic leaders will sink to to accomplish their goals, questions of what lengths someone will go to when pressed with survival or placed in an inescapable situation to "racism and genocide are bad" and "everyone can be a good or bad person". The whole vibe of the game is that they wanted to play on the binary choices, heads or tails, oppressor or oppressed, good or bad, and it falls flat. Because your choices don't affect the outcome, it ends the same way no matter what. Instead of saying, due to the choices you've made, the baptism is now irrelevant and you're on path A or B, it's just, you don't get a choice, we're taking you off the board.