Finally beat this game, it's way bigger than I thought it was. I'd say it was riding a high and peaked around Cascade Laboratories and the Security sector. That's when the maps were the most interesting, you were learning about the contained IS things, and you were still fairly regularly exploring different anteverses.

The rest of the game after Hydroplant started to feel like a slog, enemies with a lot of health and anyone with a brain knew where the story was going the instant that guy broke containment. It wasn't bad, but it really felt like it overstayed its welcome. The final boss was just plain ass, I was running mostly melee the whole time and there was no indication that you need to be totally stocked on ranged weapons. Even then you're fighting the damn thing for way too long.