One of the more intrusive failings is the utter misuse of SHODAN's verbal tics.

This isn't the first of the game's blatant screw-ups regarding SHODAN, either. So I'm not spoiling anything the game doesn't, itself, spoil in the opening minutes of real gameplay.

The intro explicitly tells you that SHODAN 'tried to destroy humanity'! even if you know nothing about System Shock 1 except what System Shock 2 explicitly tells you, it's really obvious that you're working for SHODAN. And given SHODAN is the primary focal point of the game's intro. The only possible scenarios are that Polito will turn out to be SHODAN (Quick, pretend to be surprised when you get to Operations and she thinks you didn't already know!) or that for some insane reason the writers decided to make a new character have a history of attempted genocide on the entire human species. XERXES asks you on the first floor why you are working with someone who 'tried to destroy your species once before'.

I'm talking about the fact that within the first, oh, 30 minutes of the game you're all but explicitly told you're working for SHODAN, never mind that the game pretends this is a surprising twist when it slightly-more-explicitly reveals it later on. I'm not talking anything meta here: I don't mean 'it's obvious that your radio buddy will turn out to be SHODAN because this is a sequel to System Shock and the intro made a point of focusing on ensuring the player knows about SHODAN' or anything like that. The problem is, one of System Shock 2's more obvious failings is that the twist isn't a twist. Normally, I would caution the reader about spoilers regarding one of System Shock 2's Major Twists.

System shock 2 shodan reveal