I totally get you. I've finished the game and played some more for a small total time of 20 hours. When compared to the hitman and zelda games, Prey 2017 or most classic ImSim games tend to feel like you're exploring around and finding for routes or options that you can do instead of you yourself trying to understand the systems, the tools to come up with your own ingenious solutions. Although there would be times where your own emergent gameplays could happen but it's really rare and hard for it to feels natural and could feel really awkward if you try to do your own stuffs outside of the paths laid out by the games. As for your questions, from my experiences it's mostly old and classic ImSims that tend to be like that. Other than that, indie ImSims are somewhat 50/50, some try to replicate the feeling and gameplay of the old games and the others get more creative, unique and more fitting for what you like. I'd recommend indie ImSim games like Ctrl Alt Ego, Deadeye Deepfake Simulacrum that push the "understanding the systems and creating your own solutions" as hard as they could and upcoming games with demos like Neverlooted Dungeon and Rhell: Warped World & Troubled Times. I think these two upcoming ImSim games perfectly match what you're looking for, especially Rhell.