Nothing that I said is factually incorrect.I get you. It woudn't really make much sense to pretend most of these things in a game structured like this one, but i get you.
Even though these things you wrote are factually incorrect (most always, some depending on the area):
- There are no real significant choices to make or consequences to anything you do: Doesn't make any sense to me, it's a Survival, you are asked to make choices for every enemy in every encounter.
- You can't snipe from far away so they can't even see or find you: With a silencer in the open areas, you can.
- You can't scout ahead and set up ambushes for incoming enemies ahead of time: You can and i did it several times in my Survivor playthrough. Of course, still depending by the area you are in.
- There is a pseudo open-world part but again it's just a bit of flavour and doesn't have any real interesting choices or tension to where you go and what you do: Not true, there are more than one and they absolutely do have intersting choices or tension to where you go and what you do.. like the Bank or any optional area for instance.
You are talking about different things than what I am. Making choices during combat, like am I gonna sneak up on this guy or just shoot him in the head, is not the kind of meaningful choice I'm talking about. Any kind of 'sniping', 'scouting' or 'ambush' you do is all within the same small, controlled combat arenas. You can't see enemies from far away across a large open map and think about what you are going to do, you only see enemies once you have triggered the scripted checkpoint to make them appear and you either fight them or try to sneak past them. I did everything in that open area, and no, none of it was an interesting choice. It's not an interesting choice to say should I go to the bank and get an upgrade or should I not go get the upgrade; that's just you choosing whether to skip a part of the game. There is no real strategy in making that decision, nor does the getting of the upgrade require anything significant from the player in the moment or present them with a consequence later on. You are talking about small fleeting moments, I'm talking about the bigger picture fundamental game design.