Whoever you want to be, your name is Mike Thorton, who Parker describes as a competent, well-trained field agent on his first mission. You customize how he grows as a spy, but ultimately, he’s still Thorton. We need him to be this kind of leading man,” he explains. You spy on behalf of Alpha Protocol, a secret branch of a U.S. government agency that handles deniable operations. When things go tragically wrong on Thorton’s first op, “you’re doubly screwed,” laughs Parker, because not only will the U.S. not acknowledge you as an asset, but your own agency appears to be thrusting knives in your back as well.
[...]
So while you will see XP earnings pop up in all the usual places, we were also able to deftly connect with headshots right from the start. And in another mission, where Obsidian bestowed a much more advanced character on us, we got to see how those skills pan out. You can level up Thorton in 10 areas — half involve combat, but there’s also stealth, hacking, gadget use, and health. Improving in each earns you special abilities that Parker freely admits “are kind of like spells. They’re well beyond what a normal human can do.”
[...]
With a submachine gun, though, it’s hard to not have fun hosing down a room with Bullet Storm, which grants you unlimited ammo for a brief, reckless interlude. Or you can earn a Chain Shot with a pistol, which pauses the action like Fallout 3 does with VATS so you can plan and then unleash three shots.

Thorton can also earn perks, which are little rewards “that we toss at you all the time,” explains Parker. They’re not as powerful as Fallout 3’s and are more like Achievements.​