I bought Beyond Good & Evil off Steam around Christmas when I saw it going for special. Didn't like it. It wasn't challenging and the gameplay was fairly bland. I guess this complaint could be levelled against Psychonauts, but PN kept me engaged with the characters and the story. I always wanted to keep playing so I could meet somebody new or advance the interesting subplots. I heard BG&E's characters and story are supposed to be compelling or interesting, but... eh, they just didn't do anything for me. Many months on and I can't even remember anything about it. It's drifted almost completely from my memory. All that comes to mind is a pig, a girl with green hair, and some really bland story about benevolent protectors, wait, oppressors. Actually, I'm starting to remember cringing at all the protesters that start popping up towards the end. It kinda came across as a poly sci student's wet dream.
Anybody ever give Vampire Bloodlines: The Masquerade a try? It's a FPS/RPG based on a boardgame property by WhiteWolf. It was made byTroika Studios, which was founded by some core members of the the RPG team at Interplay. That would be the guys who were making RPGS like Fallout. Vampire is a pretty solid effort, Great story, multiple characters and the dialog and in game opportunities are affected by your stats. If you feel like given it a shot, make sure to look for the fan made patch. Troika's games are kinda infamous for various bugs. I don't think it was entirely their fault, though, they were under a lot of financial pressure pretty much over the course of their existence. I even read an interview with Leonard Boyarsky(one of the founders), describing some pretty brutal crunch time he put in over most of their final two games that took him out of the game industry for a short period. And now he's on the design team for Diablo III
