Perhaps I was partial to Circuit's Edge because I'd read and enjoyed the series of books it was based on - George Alec Effinger's When Gravity Fails . I thought it was odd that a pretty way-out SciFi author got his characters and situations wraught in interactive bits, but I was happy to see it. Besides the fun of the city, the play was rather linear - one event after another, with some linear time pressure, and the city didn't exactly support endless wandering. The interface and encounters are exciting enough, but the characters you encounter, while gritty, are limited in their variance. You can make them smile by complimenting them, and get better deals from merchants, or you can diss them and they will frown.
Few designers care about the sexual history of characters in computer games, then or now.
You can do drugs and screw hookers in this game, but you'll get beaten up and depressed if you do. The game has some morality permeating its seeming seediness. The Awesome Dude's Walkthrough might give you a sense of gameplay.