it's not always about how many paths there are though, it's also about how many you feel that there are. Dragon Age: Origins is widely praised as offering a huge variety of different choices through the game, one of the biggest reasons it's probably the most praised BioWare game since the Baldur's Gates. yet it only really offered three different endings but there were a lot of other decisions through the game and even the smallest ones felt important. there were also six completely different Origin chapters to choose from which also offered decisions to make within those, the whole combining to make an overwhelming amount of replay value that few games could rival. it was expensive and time consuming to make, but I'd bet that it will be well remembered far longer than Mass Effect or even Knights of the Old Republic not all decisions have to even be valid. sometimes it's enough to have the option to try something and then see it not work. what really breaks the immersion is when you feel like something should be an option, something your character absolutely would consider doing, but can't even suggest. ok so maybe trying to broker peace between the Railroad and Brotherhood of Steel, even temporarily to fight the Institute, wouldn't work. but wouldn't it be nice to at least be able to suggest it to the factions even if you can't convince them to talk to each other? that's just one example