

I disagree about Soma being an isolated setting, there are actually lots of characters, it’s just that they’re all insane cyborgs who mostly happen to have their own personal reasons for attacking you.
I can’t seem to find them, but before the game came out there was a series of live action video shorts made in association with it to help establish the concept and setting, I’d imagine a show being along the lines of those but fleshed out more.
There was actually one published a few days ago that concluded that it can be effective:
However the person who did the study shares your concerns:
Also they did another article about difficulties and pitfalls of making these things