Their CGI trailer is still one of the best trailers I've seen for a video game [0]. When I saw it, I really felt a sense of futuristic wonder, thinking what it'd be like to augment our bodies in the near future.
The color scheme is gold because it was a "golden age of human augmentation," highlighting how people saw the new technology for its endless possibilities. Its sequel was not gold because, predictably, people used such technologies for selfish ends. I often think of other such real-world technologies paralleled in the same light, like how the Internet evolved, and even those of centuries past; the trailer's Renaissance and Icarus comparisons are apt.
I think it was more because players complained about the 'piss filter' ;) (the HR Director's Cut had already removed the filter)
I remember that around 2010 there was a number of AAA games where the visual designers just seemed to have discovered the color yellow as their game's "main theme". It soon vanished again, just like overdone lens flare or god ray effects before.
The color scheme is gold because it was a "golden age of human augmentation," highlighting how people saw the new technology for its endless possibilities. Its sequel was not gold because, predictably, people used such technologies for selfish ends. I often think of other such real-world technologies paralleled in the same light, like how the Internet evolved, and even those of centuries past; the trailer's Renaissance and Icarus comparisons are apt.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTdNRdw2y4E