It's well written == "better than Ubisoft". But the gap is smaller than it used to be, and of the gap that remains the widest is in the lore books and notes.
CP2077 is a GTA clone, too. It's in the uncanny valley, though: cops don't chase you, they just spawn behind you. Even in closed rooms! It's not part of the sci-fi lore as if this was a Minority Report or something, it's just a very naive implementation.
The parts of the game that resemble Deus Ex are arguably better, but I could poke hole in that, too.
Paradoxically, we call "cut content" what was recorded but not wired into the game. Abandonded ideas are not cut content, same as content that is cleaned up from the release thoroughly and leave no trace of it.
Concerning the life paths, it's just a fancy rumor that something was cut there. True, the origin stories for life paths in CP2077 could be perhaps as long as in Dragon Age: Origins, but keeping them short and tight is also fine.
Why have them at all? Broadly speaking, they may nudge the player into a specific ending. A lot of players vocal on forums would dismiss anything but completing all endings just for the sake of it, but if we are discussing this seriously as a role-playing game, what goes into the decision which ending to pursue matters.
The lifepath system was a key feature in the TTRPG, obvious handled a lot differently in the TTRPG than video game where they have merged the Roles with the Lifepath.
I think people are disappointed as they were expecting DA:O levels of paths but got 15-20 mins and a few chat options (that don't add up to anything).
