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This sort of criticism isn't about content. Simply having something like that happen in the plot is different from saying something interesting about it. Those sorts of plot elements are core to the genre, and are an expected part of anything within it. The genre gets most of its appeal from philosophizing about its content though.

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> The genre gets most of its appeal from philosophizing about its content though.

I don't think this is true.

Tell me what you think the game was lacking. BTW, this belief that all cyberpunk stories need to have some explicit critique of current economic systems is wrong and doesn't accurately represent the genre. Cyberpunk has always been primarily about style.

All the most well-known cyberpunk media, afaik, is extremely political. Sure, style plays a role, but even the stylistic trappings have strong political undercurrents. There's a reason 'punk' is part of the name.

One could create 'high fantasy' games, movies, books, and infuse it with any number of political views. But with cyberpunk the most common themes are highly political (and I'd say relevant to our time).

That said, I don't believe it always has to neatly fit into a 'left-wing' perspective. If anything, I'd say one of the defining characteristics is libertarianism, perhaps with leftist tendencies, but not necessarily so.

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