The reason people (including me) are butthurt over this games mechanics, is that we (i think) mostly came here for a hentai game. Not a rogue-like posing as a hentai game. The subtle difference between the two is that you just "play" a hentai game, while your mental setting for tackling a rogue-like is completely different - you expect to lose, you expect to restart, and while this game isnt THAT harsh (1 death/defeat restart), it isnt easy either. You start the game being 40 bucks in the red, youre a nobody who doesnt know the mechanics, so you get obliterated in fights by stuff you have no idea exists. You pummel the guards outside your office, thinking thats an easy buck to make, while levelling your character - turns out, doing this might be easy early on, but will negatively affect your entire playthrough in the future (guards get stronger the more you beat them; at a certain point they will easily overpower you). The fact that income is matched or surpassed by expenses doesnt help things, until you realize that all those problems fade away after beating level 3 of the prison, which allows you to drop expenses by something like 30%. That means, that the silly bar drink upgrades, that give you income equal to expenses, suddenly start turning profit, whether you work there or not.
What would help this game is a window with all the numbers added up.
How much Riot chance you have in the + vs -?
What are the actual expenses, when compared to income?
What is the current guard aggression, and how can i tell whether they will invade my office or not?
Accurate estimates on subsidies (some say subsidies cease to matter past level 2 - i would go bankrupt if that was the case).
And so on...
Theres tons of stuff thats intentionally obtuse. You wont know until you trip over it. Everything about this game screams "rogue-like". Wish there was a WARNING, before i felt the pain on my own skin.
*whew* thats about the whole rant from me lol