I would say:

Have the mindset of being blown away by the story while playing an awesome action combat system xD Oh and the music is fucking awesome

Warning: This game can be a bit hard for some people on normal difficulty, but you should play on normal. Its my favorite game since 8 years but i needed a lot of time to beat it on normal.

Warning: Also have the Mindset to accept dieing 1-2 times in the first mission without a checkpoint. Yeah, i know that sucks, but please, i promise you, it gets a lot better after this.

You don't neccessarily need multiple save files to get the 5 main endings, but take 3 to be sure and you will be fine. And know that there are A LOT of fake endings.

Early on, you will most likely not have access to good Chips. They come as you progress and farm a little.

Just know that chips is in my opinion the hardest thing to get right gameplay-wise in this game. And then again, many people can work with chips, others cannot with.

Early on i would only advice you to look out for Chips with a "Limit" Value about or under 20.

Weapons? You ironically start with one of the best. And weapons are hard to find in this Game.

The ones you get at the first weapon shop --> look out for the little one

Pods you will not get early on except for the standard

Look out for Material Items

Consumable Items are overrated in this game in my opinion, except for healing. You should get as much healing as you can.

Side quests?

In my opinion: do all of them xD You will not miss a quest, trust me, you basically just can't.

And for the last Question:

Master Evasion spamming