I am not sure I follow your logic here. I trusted the game to give me options but it seems like there is only one way and that is found out by trial and error. I would not applaud the game for giving you, what you think at least, choice - if there actually is none.
It's choice to not trust the game and there is always a choice even when it seems like there is none...the developers repeatedly mention this in their dev commentary in Human Revolution that due to how most games are gamers are accustomed to everything being laid out in front of them, they even wrote dialogues and mission detail for one of the missions that implies this, and even Warren Spector talks of this when he talks about what he wanted to make with Deus Ex 1.
That's the entire point of immersive sim, to think outside of the box and solve ingame situations using meta thinking. You aren't limited in the sense that in real world someone can make it seem like you can only so a thing one way but if you observe you can figure out another way and it works. You are told to go meet someone to get something but you might have already gone there and gotten that thing before you are even asked, you wouldn't know that there's an important thing waiting in there for you because there was no mission marker to tell you it's important so unless you were crazy about exploration you'd never be able to figure it out. Or you can accidentally meet an important character early on without realising they are important and you can kill them which can lead to their story never progressing but the game won't tell you that you killed someone important, instead it just goes on and the player has to play with those consequences. That's what makes immersive sims impressive and different from other games...that such a thing is possible.
Saying it's trial and error because the game didn't tell you is like saying Dark Souls is trial and error.