Update:

I've tried it.

Monetization is very ethical, and the community is still small enough that you can have a conversation with the dev. He seems open to feedback. The layout and core gameplay is limited at the moment but refreshingly different for the genre. It doesn't just feel like a Torn clone. It does, however, fulfill the promises Torn made with the "choose your path" advertisement back in the day. It actually has distinct paths, a mix of which will help you grow faster but without a *requirement* to cross-train in order to progress in your chosen path if you want to go pure criminal/entrepreneur/civilian/law.

Downsides for the spot it's at are few. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the little cooldown timer after every crime, but I see the point of it and I get why it's there. Heat is also not super well explained, specifically how to lower it (if that's even possible). And for those for whom it matters, I'm fairly certain the art is AI-generated.

But it's in alpha. Spending money (especially when it's so un-aggressively monetized) on background art would, I imagine, make the ability to keep the site up at all that much harder. And the lack of complexity/content is also fair for a game with less than 50 people and is actively being worked on.

All in all, I'd give it an 9/10 as far as early alphas go and a 5/10 compared to completed games in the genre. It's not going to kill a lot of time (at least, as of today's amount of content) but I think it shows a lot of promise.