I still remember fondly when I first beat Fahrenheit, aka Indigo Prophecy, from the same makers of both Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls. At the time it was something new, really freshing when it comes to storytelling in videogames. The tension of being caught in the first few minutes of the game are still one of my favorite moments ever in gaming. That game sure wouldnt be as interesting now but it still did a thing better than Heavy Rain and now Beyond: It played with the characters emotions. Tension, anxiety, etc, could have been as fatal as a bullet. The story could be over if you didnt pay attention to your character's emotional meter. Beyond and before it Heavy Rain, however, become as linear as they come. Sure both of them had more interesting stories and better character development but the gameplay and the decision making seemed pointless for the most time. I could have been as much entertained if it was a movie. There are still some gameplay in there based on puzzle solving through an entity (Aiden) connected with Jodie, the main character, based on possessing characters, moving objects, etc, but they are so basic and the game literally "tells" you where to press and do that these puzzles feel more like a pass-time objective rather than some legit gameplay mechanic.
I know David Cage's games suffer from this stigma of being called "movies" but there is some reason for that. Player manobrability is very limited and the QTE, even if at a lesser extent than in previous games, are still highly present. You'll feel you're being carried over by on-rails gameplay.
Beyond is, however, one of the prettiest games I've seen this all-gen. Sure the technical limits helped that but its still very impressive the attention to detail on character movement, facial expressions, effects, lightning, etc, etc. Great job on a technical level by Quantic Dream. The character development and acting are some of the best aswell with great performances both from Ellen Page (in wich she's just exceptional) and Willem Dafoe. The story, the main focus of the game is rather disappointing however. Not bad by any means, is definitely way better than nintenty percent of what we see in games today but if it was a movie it would be categorized as some average thriller flick. Wasnt for the amazing performances, especially for Ellen that does an exceptional job at making the player care for Jodie and Aiden, and the game would be a chore to beat.
Overall I still liked Beyond: Two Souls as an experience. A ride to take it once. But if I have to be brutally honest, I would have never be satisfied for paying full price on this game or any other type of this so called "games".