Disco Elysium

Oh Disco Elysium, where do I begin with you. It won many awards and was even deemed game of the year by some places. I think it was in the top 100 of Steam's games for a while, before the drama between the owners and makers of the game happened. And it's by far the most well known game made by people in my country (well, the core team, at least). This is definitely one of the games I wanted to like before I even got into it, but none of the screenshots and nothing I'd heard about it had really gripped me.

Disco Elysium is a narrative-driven adventure game with quite a lot of player freedom. You could even call it a point-and-click game, with how much walking around, interacting with things, and trying every dialogue or interaction option there is. But there are also RPG elements, with skill points and equipment to enhance various skills, as well as a random element that determines many successes or failures. It is often through these skills that you are forced to take certain paths through the story, as others are locked by your inabilities. This adds quite a bit of replay value to what is already a 30+ hour game.
I'm not good at history, but the game seems to take place in the second half of the 20th century. There's a big focus on politics, and on the lives of people who are not doing so well for one reason or another. It also focuses on you, and trying to regain your memories after drinking far too much one night, all the while trying to solve a murder.

I have only good things to say about how this game is made. The atmosphere is excellent. The voice acting is great. The art is unique. The music is fitting. The writing really manages to portray different characters distinctly, and the voices in your head add a lovely touch of comedy. I can really understand why this game is so highly praised, and indeed, I can think of no other story-based game that does a better job as far as the game elements are concerned. And what I mean by that is that there are many story-based games which have gameplay between story segments, but that generally only detracts from the story. Here, all the gameplay is part of the story, and only serves to enhance it. And it does a stellar job.

Despite all that, I just don't care for the subject matter, and that is very sad for me. Maybe it was too slow? Too many side quests? But I'm not confident in those claims, as this is just my retrospective analysis. I think I ultimately dropped it a bit less than halfway through.
As it goes, I can't give a full recommendation for a game I myself didn't enjoy, but I will give it a partial one. I would recommend it for fans of interactive stories, if the historical and political themes are not a turnoff, and the slower pacing is not an issue.