I think you are reading too much into it. None of that is really presented in the game, at least not in a way that tells it is "different" from every other shooter out there.

For example, you are drawing conclusions about Jason's intentions without any data to support it. Jason completely buys into the "heroic fantasy" because that's what happens in every single game out there. Although I think games could use some more investigation and questioning, they in general hand out objectives that aren't optional.

The "metaphor" between Citra and Jason was just something you made up.

The "self-centeredness" is, unfortunately, common in most games. No game shows the consequences of war for example. They don't make people feel uncomfortable or think about it. It is just a level, and the hordes of "others" you kill are unimportant.

This is the main problem with this game. It is indistinguishable from others. Whatever the author thought about saying is irrelevant. Nobody can disprove ideas that exist only in his head. What we know and we can safely analyze is the data present in the game. And the data doesn't support your reading.

It takes more tha Alice in Wonderland quotes to mean "hallucinations" or "fantasy". Everything in the game is presented with a straight face and seriousness, and with a logic that's atypical in altered states of mind. If indeed he was hallucinating or fantasizing, then things should be illogical, out of order, etc. They make too much sense for someone who is crazy.

Ehm, don't you think you're being a little too cavalier about the torture scene? Even if you knew that you HAD to do it because you would both die if you didn't, having to brutally torture your own younger sibling would hardly be described as "unfortunate, but necessary" by most people.

The whole idea of the game is that Jason completely buys into the heroic fantasy that Citra sells him and feels less and less vulnerable as a result. The relationship between Jason and Citra is a metaphor for the relationship between modern consumers and (commercial) media, or the player and the games designer, in that the consumer willingly lets his actions, ideas and his very identity be manipulated by commercial interests who sell us the dream that we are the masters of our own fate. The fact that this critique is embedded in a game that itself does its damnedest to seduce the player with escapist fantasy may seem paradoxical, but is in fact a pretty smart way of letting the mechanics support the point the game is making: that it's very hard to withstand the allure of the illusion of power and entitlement that our entertainment and media serve up.

It's only in very subtle clues (that are quickly papered over by the designers and brushed aside by Jason himself) that Yohalem's true focus filters through: the darkness and misery that happens to everyone in the game except for the ragingly self-centered protagonist. It's in the sensible misgivings of Jason's girlfriend, it's in Dennis' increasingly apparent unhingedness, it's in that torture scene. Especially, it's in the way Keith's trauma is portrayed and dealt with, as I tried to explain in my comments below Sparks' article.

If you accept that the game's protagonst is actually (in a meta-narrative way) its main villain, more things fall into place. The game's racism, for instance, isn't the author's racism but Jason's racism. The game, through its heightened reality and outright hallucinations, makes abundantly clear that we're seeing the world through Jason's eyes. The fact that he's "walking around carrying a big stick" and fails to adapt to his surroundings is the very thing the game is critiquing!

Consequently, I'd argue that the game wouldn't work if Jason himself ever had to deal with the fallout of his own actions, or ever felt in any real danger (before the denouement at least). That's the thing with entitlement and a Messiah complex, isn't it: it never gets seriously challenged because the worst offenders are so self-centered that they refuse to take notice of the deleterious effects their behaviour has on the world (not to be a European left-wing know-it-all, but: see the utter lack of evolution in the central ideas behind US foreign policy). The point is, Jason is so blinded by his own ego that he constantly comes up with narratives to keep up his worldview: oh, Keith is going to be alright because I killed the rapist, oh, it's okay to be torturing my brother because he gave permission. The player (hopefully) knows both these lines of reasoning to be self-serving bullshit. By not forcing Jason to confront his delusions (through letting Buck escape, or not allowing him to talk to his brother, or whatever), but instead leaving it up to the player's interpretation, Yohalem actually manages to go beyond simple satire to something more complicated, and ultimately, richer.

Your reasoning in the last paragraphs is therefore very odd to me. Because the game seemingly gives you permission to torture / be an entitled white man, those acts suddenly lose their moral weight? It seems to me that Yohalem expected the player to keep asking questions themselves, prompted by the (admittedly very subtle) cracks in the facade of Jason's messianistic journey.