It may be a function of difficulty level, but even at the start it's feasible to go in shooting if you're a little tactical about it. I quite liked its puzzle nature as an increment over Syndicate - it's been years since I played it but I do remember it often coming down to finding a good corner to stand behind and machinegunning enemies as they came round it.

The one thing I do miss in SR from Syndicate is that in SR all targeting is manual, whereas if you ramp up one of the sliders in Syndicate they'll pick their own targets.