Originally posted by Lamiosa:

Originally posted by Hadrian Marlowe:

A good character is defined by perspective, ordeals, strengths and weaknesses, laurels and flaws, their objectives, the key moment(s) that drove them to where they are, how far they're willing to go to get things done, their moral ground and what its worth, etc. Once you start looking into all of that and more, you'll find yourself connecting with the character regardless of differing physiological or physical attributes. This isn't the author "forcing" you into a role, rather, this is the author encouraging you to broaden your perspective, appreciate the uniqueness of a character who is their own, to be introspective and find common ground. Both the Witcher 3 and Deus Ex handled all of that very well in my opinion, so the protagonists' sex is never a good determinant of basically anything.

Yeah, I respect people who can free themselves from gender and play just anything, but I do not enjoy playing male the slightest and always have to think about if game forces me to. Especially the Witcher forced the player to play a role which confronted the player to reflect a male role lots, if you just think of how he acted with females.
One can argue to go beyond the physical looks and play a feminine male or masculine male, but it would still be both male to me. In the end its even more playing a male I do not like than the feminine or masculine part, as I do not have issues with masculine females in games.
Gender is still a core element to me and there are not many RPGs where the dialogues or actions are completly "genderless". It also would be strange or unrealistic as it is normal that NPCs react to your physical looks, as its also in RL with peoples.

Why is that an issue, is what I'm wondering, especially considering you just said its playing as the Male that bothers you more than being masculine or feminine. But I will encourage you to go beyond and try out new stuff, there's too much you're missing out on when you withdraw simply because of sex. People wouldn't read Nancy Drew back in the day simply because she is a girl. This sounds exactly the same to me.

I can partly understand your point about Witcher, but Deus Ex has none of that, not by the protagonist anyway. The writing behind the games and Jensen is so good, so is the gameplay. You could at least give it a shot, got nothing to lose.