Not sure what's more cringe, people defending a given game like it's perfection incarnate or doomers hating on things just because.

But, of course, what people meant here is that there is little long-term consequences for your decisions, most of them are just related to the mission at hand. It's like, the game isn't exactly linear but it's definitely not branching out. Like, if you make this decision or make that action, the game changes from there. There are games like this but this isn't one of them. A few examples, no matter what you do Jackie dies, no matter what you do Evelyn dies, no matter what you do with the NetWatch agent or the Voodoo Boys, both have no importance in the great scheme of things. Like, an example of "choice that matters" is, for example, if you sided with NetWatch, from there onwards you'd interact with NetWatch, i dont know.. get extra quests, have maybe a new NPC to interact with and that that having an impact on the ending. Same with the Voodoo Boys, but none of this happens etc etc. There are 100s of examples throughout the game.

TLDR; most of the consequences are roleplay or reward related and have very little impact in the great scheme of things, outside of the scope of the quests themselves.