Boring above anything else
I really, really don't get why this game has such high ratings. It does dome things really well, but it ultimately it utterly fails at its promise of "play and rule as evil with consequences."
The game starts promising, and really, its first chapter is without a doubt the best one, but it all goes downhill from there.
Tyranny gives you a promise of building a new world order in great evil overlord Kyros' name, but you don't actually do that. What you do is you do a bunch of fetch quests, and solve bickering between two generals of Kyros, who both behave like total morons - one mass-enslists defeated, bitter enemies, so that they can betray him, and the second one straight up executes them and then complains that his army doesn't have enough soldiers. Then, they both argue instead of fighting.
There are moments where you can completely indulge yourself as an evil mastermind, yes, but I would expect a game with its main promise of "playing evil" to have more of them. Also, would expect much more opportunities at playing real evil instead of just "kill or don't kill".
The game is full of illusionary choices - it straight up tells you that choices "matter". Well, that is a lie - yes, they matter to the point of what allies you are going to have, but ultimately, no game does really give you a choice where to steer the story. This one certainly doesn't, as you are ultimately a servant of someone else. For example, you can kill or spare a prominent political figure, but sparing her only results in her committing suicide.
The game is also very rushed past the first chapter, and it shows. Short, with tons of filler combat. Boring for most of the 2nd half. Really unsatisfactory and abrupt ending. If you want a game where you can role play as an evil tyrant, play Pathfinder: Kingmaker as an evil character. That playthrough will do a thousand times better job than this game.
5 gamers found this review helpful