For this one, I agree but MC doesn’t need to necessarily talk to respond to their environment, the one thing I loved in the demo was the mini dialogues where it described things like the MC feeling their heart-beat pick-up, trying to blow off some dust only to remember that they’re wearing a mask, the interrogation subject squinting and glancing at them, all the fine little things that made the MC felt present at the moment.
In some parts yeah, the archangel route felt like there was a little bit too much action going on, the second chapter made me constantly need to reread and double-check on a couple of things because there were just so much going on and new characters being introduced and named so suddenly that I had a hard time keeping up and remembering what was going on on-screen. Other than that the rest of the demo would usually read as smooth as butter.
While identity solidification is important for the player’s character to help them gain a stronger grip on knowing how to feel and interact with the outer environment and the characters in said environment, it felt like most of the MC’s identity and accomplishments was already established in book 1 so having the childhood customization suddenly appear out of nowhere felt like it was adding a little bit too much more weight on what already was there.
What I did end up liking were the small details of that hint about MC’s past and experience, tidbits where it mentioned that you’ve been to fences when selling the necklace and seen drug labs when raiding the apartment kitchen, the nuggets of information felt nice to dug up.
One final thing I’d like to mention is that the MC is by no means a good or a bad person. But because they are the protagonist, it’s up to the players to justify the actions taken, so don’t be too afraid of going a little wild with shaking the player a bit for the consequences of MCs actions. 
I really can’t stress enough how much I liked how it made the MC acknowledge the amount of grief and loss they had caused to other people in that one dream sequence, that part was absolute 
Also apologies, for the giant this end of text, ended up having way too much fun got getting carried away while writing all of this 
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But no, the MC might have a few tricks up their sleeves. Their elbows and knees could be included, but most of the time, it’ll be either melee or environmental.
. Well never played Payday before the archangel job but still…anyway i absolutely loved the first game and im hyped as hell to see the release of this one, keep up the good work my friend 
