Which is not to say that the game is rigid either, there is not one sole effective build that you have to follow, i think the systems in that game afford a wealth of replayability. (Which is something the game itself clearly recognizes, with the higher than usual cyber module cost for that skill.) You might assume that hacking is important because it's a cyberpunk game, but it's easy to overlook the importance of the maintenance skill. It, however, doesn't successfully convey which things are important.
The game tries its very, very hardest to prepare you, there's an incredible interactive tutorial, and there are tool tips and tutorial prompts everywhere. Okay, but in this game where resources are so precious and each individual action is so important, how do you have an ideal first playthrough? I don't think you can, i think the game is inadvertantly a bit trial and error. Honestly though, I always felt that the game was quite easy on its easy difficulty. You still have to specialize to be effective, and you need to know what you're specializing in, or things will just spiral out of control.
The easier difficulties on System Shock 2 actually give you more cyber modules, so you do have more room for experimentation, but you still want to have a plan.
