Well I've just finished my second playthrough of this marvelous game, first Bachelor and second Haruspicus, and I would like to have a bit of splurge about it!
First is this game had now become one of my hallowed classics, joining the likes of System Shock, Thief, Planescape and Grim Fandango. I eagerly await 'The Void' and I have the feeling that Ice-Pick Lodge are going to become one of those developers, like Looking Glass Studios, that I buy the games of simply because they created them.
I was always intrigued by 'Pathologic' when I read about it on some adventure game site many years ago and always seemed to see it in the shops. For some reason though I never made the plunge to buy it, due to the talk of the difficulty and translation issues, but after reading the first paragraph of that 3 part write up on RPS I made up my mind to play this game. Of course I then couldn't find a store that stocked it! Luckily however I stumbled upon Gamers Gate, immediately whipped out my credit card and started downloaded.
The first thing that struck me about the game, and continued to impress my as I played, was the look of the game. The tech is certainly out-dated, and I have a feeling that may have been the case even when it was originally released, but what you
do with it is incredible. I've always thought that art direction is far far more important than pure technical fidelity, that's the reason Valve can keep making games with the quite antiquated Source engine, and never was that more apparent than in 'Pathologic'. Everything from the grandiose structures of the Polyhedron and Abbitior, to the small touches like the leaves and lillies, to something as simple as placement of the streets and buildings all combine to create a fullly realised and unique gameworld. Bonus points for actually taking the whole cliche of the 'brown' FPP game and actually making it work! The music was also brilliant and contributed greatly to the feel. Roaming out in the steppes as the Harispicus, searching for herbs, while that haunting and moody piece played is one of my most immersive experiences in gaming ever.
The writing is easily in the top echelon of game writing, the only games I can think off that are of comparable calibre are Tim Shafer's stuff, Planescape, Portal, Thief, Fallout and, in it's quirky way, World Of Goo. I cannot stress the brilliance of the writing enough and in an industry where shit like Fallout 3 can get recognition for it's writing it is so liberating to find a game that's actually had some thought put into it. The complex characters, twists and turns of the story, the meta-commentary, all gripped me completely, even if occassional the translation issues meant I didn't quite know what was going on
It's also incredible that you managed to create not 1, but 3 unqiue stories. I was struck how different the Haruspicus campaign was and how I saw things in a completely different light, including not liking the character (the Bachelor) I had previously played as! I have left the Devotress campaign until after the new translation comes out and I can't wait to see what that is like!
The gameplay got a lot a stick in the reviews that I read but I must say that I actually enjoyed it most of the time. The survival aspect was great and something I wish more games would do and the missions where quite varied and always interesting. I quite liked the testing of the medicines in the Bachelor campaign and the lighting of the fires with Stub in the Haruspicus campaign. While admittedly an improvement on certain mechanics would have made the missions much better the objectives and motivations for them where all very well designed. I never felt like I was someones errand boy and I never had the moments where someone tells you there life story, immediately trusting you with some intimate matter. The missions all flowed organically and intelligently from the plot and characters and now that I've had a taste of that I don't know how I'm going to go back to Mass Effect et al. Many also complained about the endless walking and for the most part it didn't bother me at all due to the intense atmosphere, minute to minute survival and a plot that often game me a lot to think about. I will say however the Abbitior did indeed test my patience! I got quite sick of walking that path, through what was to me the most dull area, to see the Elder.
The game is of course not perfect and in the interest of balance I'll talk about some of those things here. Combat is of couse is a weak point and I suppose it was not resonable to expect it to be of a high standard considering the size of the team and the other areas they chose to put more work into. I wouldn't want the game to turn into an action game but I certainly think a visceral Riddick style melee combat system would have been great. It would have made the combat more than the usual 'step forward-stab-step back-dodge' thing and could have been different for each character eg the Bachelor would be standard and the Haruspicus more brutal with more moves since it people often remark that his is quite adept with his fists. I also think it is a game that would greatly benefit an increased stealth element. There is one of course but a more in depth one with opportunities for eavesdropping, pick pocketing and a lock-picking minigame would have fit quite nicely. This could also be altered between the characters with the Devotress perhaps being the most stealthy? Sorry if that doesn't work with the character but remember I haven't played as her yet and she seems pretty sneaky in the other campaigns!
Anyway in summary: Thank for the most wondeful game!
I agree with you on every point 
The story and writing are definitely among the best ever and I feel that Pathologic is also one of the most artistically brilliant games I've played. Too many people are obsessed by the latest graphical techniques and miss what's really important: The aesthetics. I would love to see more games with similarily well-developed 'survival' gameplay - which is why we're lucky to have The Void