There is a very good 52-part playthrough of the game on
***Youtube***. It's almost like playing the game yourself because the uploader is playing it for the first time himself and isn't trying to play at light speed and doesn't click through all the conversations before you have a chance to read them.
So anyone who is avoiding the game because of SecuROM (or, like me, who couldn't get it to play on their computers because of the SecuROM) can watch the Youtube playthrough and see what the game is about and form their own opinion of the story.
My opinion is that they made both characters very unlikeable so
(mild spoiler)
the gamer wouldn't mind so much what happens to them at the end.
At least what it looked like to me was that
(big time spoiler)
the inspector was drowned in mud, the thief was blamed for it and either beaten to death or beaten and then sent to the gallows for execution (without the inspector to defend him, no one would believe him), and the real killers got away scot free to continue their killing spree elsewhere.
I don't think the strategy of using unlikeable characters worked very well. Many people were put off of the game because of the unpleasant characters, and it didn't diminish the disappointment at the end of the game.