Exactly, and the majority of those endings are determined in the last scene, too.  It's kind of like Fable or Knights of the Old Republic, where you could be a bastard or a saint the whole game, and the only real decision that changed your ending was one good or bad choice at the end.  All the other "choices" had zero real impact other than your appearance and some minor play mechanics (which, truth be told, is actually more than what you get in Heavy Rain).

I think Heavy Rain is more "The Console Equivalent to viewing the alternate scenes in a movie while you're watching it"...  No matter what, the story is pretty much on rails save for a few things, and even if certain characters die, another character just takes their place in some way in later scenes.  The more you play it, the less there is to the game.

David Cage calls it interactive drama but it is basically an adventure game

well the things you do are actually important but the endings are basically mostly based on who lives and who doesn't..

Let me be you for a minute:  You're wrong about some things, especilly the game, because I've actually played it and am speaking from experience.

***SOME SPOILERS**  If, for instance, Jayden dies in the earliest mission he can die in, his climactic confrontation with the killer at the end of the game still occurs, but Maddison takes his place (ie- she's fighting the killer insted of Jayden...).  If they are both dead, only then do you miss that part.  If they are both dead, though, there is only one ending you can get.

If Maddison dies without telling Jayden (who she has no way of knowing, but this is still an option) or Ethan how to get to the end stage, they still do and can still get the same result as when Maddison would normally be there...  You can lose EITHER one without any real effect on the story.

The ONLY difference one of the characts dying makes is that you then don't get to make any more meaningless choices with them later in the game.  No decisions except for character deaths have any weight whatsoever, and as long as only one dies (only two can up until the end, anyway...) it doesn't matter.  Almost none of the scenes in the entire game have any impact on later on.  You are the one that is wrong, and you sound like the BS press hype kits for this game.

SPOILER ALERT!:

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On my first playthrough, Norman died at Mad Jack's, and when I got to the end, Scott shot Ethan (just wounded him), and Scott then chased Madison across the harbor, only to be killed by Ethan.

There may be a certain ending where Norman and Madison can both take that role, but in general, they all have very different roles.

I can't tell if the above comes off rude; I'v ebeen letting my frustrations and dissapointment with the game come accross with anger with its fans. I know that you, CGI, were very much looking forward to this gme and singing its praises before its release. I'm not looking to insult or offend you, and I know you must be a little miffed that the final product was such a mess.

But you got pretty much the same ending as if Jayden dies at the end, right?  (your experience is a bit different than mine..  There's a trophy specifically linked to an either or scenario with Jayden or Maddison basically just being inserted into the sme scene.  I hadn't seen another variation besides them all dying.)

It's really hard to discuss what's wrong with the game without going into heavy spoilers... 

I haven't had Jayden die at the end, so it's hard to say >_>

"Another character takes their place" may have been misleading... There is really only the one ending I can think of that is pretty much "if Jayden's dead, Maddison does it" and it does require one other thing to change (I still can't remember the name of the trophy that references it, but the text is pretty much "let the killer fall to his death with either Jayden or Maddison"). Still, tht's really the only pivotal point of the game that is even slifghtly derailed by a character's death, which was my whole point.

It doesn't matter what you do in the game, or who dies. It pretty much comes down to one of two outcomes depending on how many people survive... I am currently past the Bear on a subsequent playthrough where I have done NOTHING (save for walking to certain points to end a scene, or mandtory things like having Maddison shower or Scott change the baby), ignoring that the QTE's are even occuring, and nothing has changed (in fact, in the . Being tht far into the game with not one decision meaning a thing is the biggest failure of a gmae that's only selling point is how important your decisions are... There's really only a handful of scenarios that matter, and even those have minimal importance, because the remaining characters get by just fine without the missing ones, who contributed nothign to the story for the most part, and it's impossible for the half of them to die before the end anyway. It's really limited, and it's dishonest to try and say otherwise in the game's defense. 80% of your decisions have no impact on the story whatsoever, forgotten entirely in the next scene or brushed off by single line of dialogue. It's heavily dissapointing.

It's called the rubberband structure.  It gives you the illusion of choice while still telling the same basic story.