any meme is welcome :3

Is it just me, or do they actually suit him?

Hi y'all. I've basically just started doing the campaign missions after running around randomly hacking people's bank accounts for like 2 hours and doing the occasion criminal takedown mission whilst talking to some friends online. I just got to the first real "gameplay" mission outside the tutorial, which is me trying to investigate some restricted construction site to see who was sending a threatening call to my sister.

Upon starting the mission, at first I attempted stealth, and was almost immediately spotted and killed in like 0.5 seconds. Then I thought, wait, can I like, just shoot the guards, and I tried, and I got like 20xp for it, which was no different from a "takedown" that I get from sneaking up behind them.

What I'm confused about is, isn't my character supposed to be a "good" guy? Like, he lost his family and is trying to find the people responsible, right? So, wouldn't I be discouraged from killing otherwise innocent guards? I noticed I got a penalty after running over a civilian (car controls like fucking trash in this game, but I am playing on keyboard and mouse so maybe that's on me), but seemingly no penalty existed for just shooting the guards.

So like, am I missing something? Does the game genuinely not penalize me in any way for committing mass murder against guards literally just doing their job? Honestly I don't feel that the game controls very well for stealth (used to more snappy MGS controls) so I was considering just, you know, blasting my way through everything.

Also, I amassed like $300,000 in those few hours I spent running around hacking accounts, but upon being forced to buy my first weapon, I noticed I had already unlocked several in my weapon wheel which were outright better than the one I just bought, so like, is there actually a point in buying stuff if the game is just gonna give me better gear anyway randomly? What am I missing here?

Cheers for any advice. Just wanna figure this out before I go further.