This is the vampire game most imersive and well written to date, prepare yourself for a deep gothic bloody world.
At the beginning, you can spend points on skills and abilities on a character screen creation very similar to the one presented by the pen and paper version. When you finish it, you start the game seeing an opening scene of your character still being human, a few minutes before his/her night companion shows what he/she is about to do with you. After that, you're a fledgling vampire, receiving it's first lessons about how to act (or not), how does your skills works (depending on your clan), all in a tutorial-like level where a more old vampire teaches you everything you must know. If you don't want to hear, you can just say it to this old vampy called Jack and he will let you alone.
In this game you just don't level up as in the others RPGs; you gain experience points as you progress in the game, and you use these exp points to spend on your attributes that, unlike some people said, is not so difficult to see the character progress; with only a few points, you can lockpick doors, enhance your weapon effectiveness and aim, and do more damage with your melee and unarmed skills. You gain 2-3 points on the beggining of the game from each completed quest, and you spend something like 3-5 points in some skills. Consider it a kind of "level up" system, because there will be a moment that you will need to spend 8-12 points, but there will be some quests that will give you 9-10 points, in other worlds, it's very balanced.
There are a lot of people complaining about the shooter experience form too. I will say it just once: it is not an action shooter. End of discussion. If it was, it would be better than a lot of shooters indeed. Let me explain: if you find that your character aren't hitting what you are aiming, please my friend, don't be a noob, and open your character sheet to look at your ranged combat feat; then, look at the minimal point that your gun requires to be aimed properly. Now it's a simple math trick: if the required points are above what you really has, why will you spend time trying to shoot? Imagine that you are playing Diablo 2 with the Necromancer; will you be fool enough to try and put a two hand sword or a big axe on his inventory? It's the same thing. If you wanna turn Vampire - Bloodlines into a shooter, you can, you need only to fill your Ranged combat feat to the maximum, and you will have a relic of a shooter game, and prepare yourself to wonder some of the coolest reload animations from game history. You wanna play as a spy? Very good, spend your points on sneak, hacking and lockpicking, and you will have the funniest stealthy RPG to date.
The plot of the game is so well dictated that you feel as you are indeed inside the story, leading you to make choices not to see what will happen next, but choosing between lines that you would really choose if you were a vampire. The imersion factor is impressive. No wonder it was created by the old Fallout develop team, those guys are saints when creating plots, and if you played Fallout 1 and 2, you will see a lot of similarity between them and Vampire. And it's a very good thing. They not only made a very original plot, imersing you inside the game, but also created a gothic atmosphere with extremely success, I dare to say it even touch the heart of the lovers of this culture. And this point has countless facts that assists in this atmosphere: environments, characters, NPCs, sound effects, textures, quests and, most of all, the soundtrack. You hear songs from Lacuna Coil, Chiasm, Genitorturers, Tiamat and some others.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is an RPG created by the guys who really know what they're doing, unfortunately, it wasn't enough to support Troika Games, but surely they left us with a real masterpiece, with a gameplay value that is still alive nowadays.