I am looking for games with a (more or less) futuristic setting and a technology-critical story (e.g. an ambitious experiment that got out of control, major changes in society because of technological advancements, humans enslaved by machines etc.)

Some good examples would be:

Deus Ex
Dead Space
F.E.A.R.
Final Fantasy X (might be surprising to some people, but Zanarkand is in many ways an example of technological ambitions that aimed too high and created much suffering as a result. SIN might not be a machine but he was meant to be a tool, and then he was too powerful to control)
Resonance Of Fate
SOMA
System Shock

Personally, this setting / theme is more important to me than anything else (genre-wise). I appreciate any suggestions, regardless of system (PC, console) or DRM (although it would be a nice extra if it is a gog-catalogued game). If I can't play it I will just watch a Lets Play (until I can play it).

Thank you very much.


games mentioned thus far (in alphabetical order):

A New Beginning
Another World
Arcanum: Of Steamworks And Magick Obscura
Beneath A Steel Sky
Bioshock series
Doom series
Fallout series
Flashback
Future Wars
Half-Life
Homeworld
I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream
Inivisible Inc.
Mass Effect series
Nexus: The Jupiter Incident
Omikron: The Nomad Soul
Primordia
Quake
Resonance
Rex Nebula
SaGa Frontier: T260
STASIS
Technobabylon
The Longest Journey
The Moment Of Silence
The Swapper
The Talos Principle
Thief II
Twin Sector
UnderRail
X series

Very easy. The Mass Effect Trilogy.

System Shock 2

SaGa Frontier: T260's story is focused on technology. (Note that this is only one of the 7 stories in the game, all different. Also note that the game is unusual in that stat growth occurs without levels and traditional experience, and is different for each of the 4 races, and of course T260 is not human.)

Technobabylon. It's not all about "Technology is bad, bad, bad", but it's playing in a world that's pretty fucked up because of technology. A few examples: People don't have jobs, because machines can do their jobs better. People don't eat food anymore, because they have machines at home that produce protein-mash from recycled garbage. People get their minds hacked because everyone's "wired" (they've got stuff in their heads to connect to everything). "Gengineering" (genetic engineering) is absolutely normal and there are no limits on what can be done.

Have you played GOG freebie Beneath a Steel Sky?

Nexus: The Jupiter Incident.

And to a certain extend Thief II.

Delphine Software games (Another World/Flashback/Future Wars)

How about Homeworld ?

Does I Have No Mouth qualify?

Original Half Life?
The aliens are brought through because of a failed experiment.

The Swapper should qualify. It's a bit spoilery to explain why it qualify so read the description of the game. It's a 2D puzzle platformer but the story keeps happening when you play and it's terrific, largely because of the awesome atmosphere.

The Talos Principle. Puzzle game but there's a background story that focuses on civilization, humanity, consciousness, A.I etc.. and it's great.

Twin Sector. Another puzzle game but its heavily focused on taking advantage of physics. I thought it was great, if rough around the edges. It's set in space like The Swapper so I'm not sure how one draws the line that there's technological change for the entirety of society but when you play, you get little bits of information that fill in interesting details. I don't remember it being heavy on story but I might be wrong.

Excellent pick, I enjoyed that game a lot.
Probably my favorite puzzle game of the past couple of years.

MASS EFFECT SPOILERS AHEAD

@sunshinecorp, thank you!
Mass Effects story is very interesting in this regard, but I am not so sure about it. I don't remember it very well, so I will probably take another look. From what I can recall however, it seems dogmatically pro-technology. I could be very wrong here and for that I am sorry. But it seems the further advanced a technology is an alien species is using the higher its social standings / meaning / influence is. You might or might not say „Of course it is!“ but that's exactly my point. It is some kind of questionable („self-evident“) principle that technology equals power. It is not like the Sovereigns died because they had any problems with reliablity for example (internal logic, consistency). Which means: They were right. It might be a different story from humanitys point of view, but in the end they „win“ (at least in the original game. Again, I could have missed something.. or even a lot).

MASS EFFECT SPOILERS END

@Smannesman
I should have written „System Shock series“ instead of just „System Shock“ since I meant both games in my examples. „I Have No Mouth“ probably qualifies! Thank you.

@dtgreene
Thank you, I will check it out.

@real.geizterfahr
Nice summary, very much appreciated!

@v3
I tried it once for an hour or so but this was before I specifically looked for such games. I will try it again. Thank you.

@Strijkbout
I think it can be very difficult for space-war-games to be critical about technology because it would have to be very dystopian / apocalyptical about the situation (a war is, but it is also a bit slim story-wise). I mean, technology has been pushed very far by the time the war is starting, so it is probably highly valued and established. But I believe you have your reasons to suggest it, so I will check it out, thank you.

@Emob78
Something I probably would have never considered, which can be a very good thing, thank you.

@Matewis
I don't know! At first glance it looks like „We are at this stage where you can fight technology only with even more technology“. So, it's very far in the spiral of technological advancement. But I will take a closer look, thank you.

@adaliabooks
There is some hope that currently DRM'd games will be available DRM-free in the future. I can wait. However, I won't live long enough for this to happen to Half Life. This only leaves LPs, thank you.

To all: I am at the point where I try to pinpoint what it is exactly that fascinates me about this theme / setting, so please, don't be offended when I get a bit picky even though my starting post is not very detailed about what it is I am looking for. I don't blame you. To find this kind of input you guys are giving me is difficult, because google just fails at it. I could search for cyberpunk or dystopian games and so on, true, but this somehow always ends in the same (mostly inaccurate) results over and over..

From what you've said, I gather maybe Thief II: The Metal Age would be a good title. The people (particularly the nobility) are embracing the new kind of technology – steampunk – to replace manual labourers, production, guards and security systems. There are some in the City who are skeptical about the new steam tech, even afraid of it (the Pagans). Eventually the automatons nearly become the City's undoing due to the plans of the evil mastermind, which you must stop.

Is this something you're looking for? If so, maybe I can dig up several more similar examples in other genres.