What makes Soma a profound DIA experience isn't solely its gameplay; it's how cleverly the makers worked with the very idea of "gameplay" -- working with the concept of "play" as a means of finding one's identity.
When I heard that Soma really shovels in ass-heaps of "deep" dialogue, I was ready to cringe at how clearly the game could have been a book or a film rather than something marketed as interactive.
This was wrong.
Soma is skillful in its design as a first-person survival-horror/adventure game like its sister Amnesia The Dark Descent. Its scenery is made up of visual treats of the "sci-fi horror" aesthetic, and without any clusterfucks of detail that distract you from the key items (which allows the game's pace to move more smoothly).
Sure, there are monster-chase sequences that speed things up, but for the most part Soma is a quiet lot of walking around, yet it's rarely boring because it feels like you know what you're doing: you walk down a hall, you'll find the level's exit or an item to help you find said exit.
On paper, I know it sounds like a redundant simulator of seek-and-find, but Soma engages further in a way that's cerebral, as room by room of the underwater facility seems to hide some little clue or detail that elaborates the hidden story of what happened down there that led to the facility's downfall. Plus, the variety of short puzzles (again like Amnesia) helps fend off any monotony.
The writing could be criticized, however, for how implausibly the main protagonist acts after some otherwise scary moments. More than several times you run away from a monster and then you talk to your partner like that was more of a chore than a life-or-death situation; or even less plausible, how right after these moments he dives straight into philosophical questions to make the player "think" -- which feels a tad pretentious. But at least the ending (before and after the credits) serves as an engaging demonstration and counterpoint for all the discussions' subject matter. (Eternal doom and eternal paradise.)
Less of a criticism and more of a gripe: comparing the monster sequences to Amnesia, Soma ventures into a less subtle taste of "horror" which is how your screen's interface glitches and screams at you with static at the suspenseful parts; and considering that your interface is inescapable, this is borderline jump-scare territory -- and surely I needn't explain why jump-scares are tasteless. (And to jump immediately back to my dick-sucking tone: speaking of blasted static, was I the only person really impressed with Soma's sound design? I was entranced by the vivid textures and infinite variations of sounds made by wet machinery and speaker-system feedback throughout these glitches and monster chases.)
Anyhow, Soma surprised me with its casual means of intense atmosphere and Cartesian philosophy. Its ending was definitely better than fucking Amnesia's three endings, but the gameplay and palette for what's "scary" didn't impress me as much.