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I agree with a lot of the criticisms other reviewers have pointed out. The premise is great and I love the central concept of interviewing suspects while disguised as various characters (it reminded me of the chameleon suit from Journeyman Project 3). The cast is pretty large and gives you a lot of dialogue options to choose from. I also didn't mind the different potential murderers as it made me pay attention.
Unfortunately, the actual gameplay is pretty monotonous. There aren't that many choices you make that really impact the ending, and worst of all, you actually get a less satisfying ending if you get the final accusation right (in my opinion). There's several times where I wanted to ask a character about something but couldn't. Also the transitions between hours didn't always work for me, sometimes requiring me to reload and play through the same content multiple times. There's also a cutscene you see early on that doesn't make sense and turns out to have nothing to do with anything.
Check it out if you're curious but definitely wait until it's on sale. The acting is good and you at least have the freedom to switch between forms and talk to whoever you want, which is a lot more variety than some FMV interactive fiction-style games I've played.

I bought The Shapeshifting Detective because some of the actors were the same as in Contradiction, which I enjoyed despite its flaws, and I can say the same thing is true for this game. The actors were doing a good job for the most part, even if Robert Booth (the Chief) seemingly has to overact every scene and character he plays. It's passable, though, because he feels genuinely invested and I'll take that over boring underacting in FMV games. As for the story, it was interesting enough to motivate me to finish the game in 3 1/2 hours in one sitting, gaining the "Find the killer on your 1st playthrough" achievement in the process. I don't think it is hard to do, it just means that you have to use the game's unique "shapeshifting" mechanic quite a lot and sometimes "jump" into the same characters multiple times per chapter, if it feels like it could reveal something. That's all there is to the gameplay as well, so if the story and they way it is presented isn't appealing to you in the first 10 minutes, I'd say you probably won't enjoy the rest of the game.

Overall, a good FMV game. I am not interested in replaying it (and since I got probably the best ending or one of the best endings, I don't see a reason to), but since I got it on sale for 3€ I think it was totally worth it.

I have a soft spot for the D'Avekki series of FMV games. They have a knack for new-weird world building with acting that walks the delightful line of camp and immersion. Dekker, Shapeshifting, and Dark Nights form a strange trilogy of intrigue and tone with strong production values. The Shapeshifting Detective has a fairly linear plot with these little optional branches that extend the fiction of the people and the setting, designed so you can run it a few times and learn something new. The killer is randomized, although guides or multiple playthroughs can make it painfully obvious who it is within minutes. It is not the deepest game in a mechanical sense, but it's a very charming vibe that I think about fondly.
It does run on Steam Deck, but at the time of this review, there is a glitch that causes a few frames of each video clip to flicker between what was playing and what should be when a new clip begins to play, like it couldn't queue up the right position in the timeline. Once the clip has been playing for more than a second, it will look correct. It's distracting and obnoxious, but it won't stop you from finishing the game. However, because the game is nothing but video clips strung together, you're going to be seeing that glitch hundreds of times. I haven't had this issue in the Switch version or my desktop PC.