The main character starts the game literally giving himself a traumatic brain injury by drowning himself in alcohol. It's not really the kind of RPG where you can play a self-insert, the player character is an actual character with his own backstory. Not being able to make good choices because of the player character's personal trauma and limitations is part of the story that the game is telling.

So bad that I had to hop on a forum and go “Hey, so, there aren’t any good choices in the dialog tree, did I fuck up my character generation? Should I start over?”

Your first mistake was thinking it was like any of those other CRPGS with dialog trees. No, you didn't fuck up your character generation. Your character IS a fuck up. That's part of the story it's trying to tell. You don't get to Mary Sue this shit.

How you engage with the game is figuring out how to un-fuck-up the character in a matter that is realistic. Or just ignoring whatever lessons the game gives you and continue down the same self-destructive path. Or somewhere in-between. All paths are have their creative stories to tell, and even being strange and weird with it can still lead to solving pieces of the crime you're trying to piece together.

Yeah, I don’t get games where “You want some fuck?” is a valid dialog choice.

Because it's fucking funny when you didn't know what the actual dialogue entry was going to be, you took a gamble, and the "pay off" (well, it was a failed check) is that your character says the cringest fucking line to some woman he's immediately attracted to. So cringe that even your own Volition (best fucking mental power, btw) is like "the words already left your mouth" as if he was already smacking his goddamn forehead right through to the other side. (EDIT: Actually, it was Suggestion, but whatever.) If anything, it should teach you not to make red check gambles unless you're prepared for the mental damage a failure might come with. Or maybe you just want to laugh at the upcoming misfortune.

Your. Character. Is. A. Fuck up.

If that bothers you, and you want to play something that involves some extreme power fantasy, where you can pick a class and play a completely silent blank slate, then this game is not for you.

Hey, if you don’t have traumatic brain injury, what are you doing on Lemmy?

I think the problem is that it kind of isn't an RPG.

It's an adventure game with heavy RPG elements. Like the core gameplay clearly resembles old point and click adventure games. It's just the experience and leveling system are also so central to the gameplay that it wouldn't work without also being an RPG.

I mean, it's ok to not get it? It really does sound like you just don't get it. If your example of why it's bad is a genuinely funny, absurd result of a failed check, it might just not be for you.

I could see what it was going for but it felt like a chore to play so I stopped.

The term "over-embroidered" springs to mind.

Being insulted by Cuno and that other little rat faced fuck was a highlight for me

You've confused basic with good, common mistake

That's not what the detective said. He SAID "I want to have fuck with you"

To me Disco Elysium was the next example of the "Art Game".

The game people bring up when discussing Game as Art, without actually explaining what makes it art.

By chance did you pick a character with a low intelligence or charisma? Because ability scores matter a lot.

I sadly didn't get to play much of it. I only had access to it for a limited time, and I did not get far at all.

I mostly just hated that the story was largely delivered via info dump and nearly every character was a terrible person to the point of being grating. I don't have to enjoy every video game, but I wish I at least understood why this one got this much acclaim.