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Like some FPS games have various classes of soldier to choose from, Shadowrun has different races, ala the RPG roots of the game.  Different races have different strengths and weaknesses and they counterbalance one another nicely.  Humans are the basic meatbags that we all are and can't withstand much damage, don't move all that quickly, and have no real inherrent special abilities. 

They do, however, come from the reigning society prior to the emergence of the other races (referred to as metahuman), so they have access to more money and take less of an essence (the energy that powers the use of various magic and technology) penalty when using technology.  Trolls, on the other hand, are huge, lumbering creatures.  They move rather slowly compared to the other races, but can take huge amounts of damage and can wield the heaviest weapons as easily as a human can carry a pistol. 

Dwarves are small in stature but move at least as quickly as humans and have more essence than any other race, though it regenerates much more slowly for them.  To make up for this they have the natural ability to absorb essence from other creatures and magical items, making them strategically valuable in a number of ways.  Dwarves are resilient as well and can survive a single headshot from a sniper rifle and are immune to the game's one "stealth kill" which I'll discuss in a bit.  Elves move faster than any other race, have more essence than humans or trolls, and regenerate health on their own.  They are very weak, however, and can't take much damage before dying.  The best teams will have at least one member of each race in a battle, although teams made up entirely of one race (usually elves) are not uncommon.

It is definitely the RPG elements that make Shadowrun interesting and fun to play.  Without these elements the game would be just another online FPS and not a particularly good one.  In fact, it would be just another Counterstrike clone.  The game is very reminiscent of Valve's tactical shooter in a number of ways.  There is no campaign mode whatsoever and the only one-player action comes in the form of a handful of training missions and optional matches against bots.  There is no offline multiplayer feature with the exception of system link.  That's right, no split-screen offline or on. 

At the beginning of each round in a match players have a chance to buy weapons, ammo, magic, and tech to use in the round.  Magic and tech purchased stays with the player through the entire match, but weapons are lost if the player is killed.  This adds strategy to the game over the course of the match because funds are limited and it is pretty much impossible for players (other than humans who start out with a bit more money) to purchase a weapon and a magic or tech ability in the first few rounds of the game.  Money is earned for killing opponents or performing other actions that assist the team while (TK's beware) attacking or killing teammates (even accidentally) results in have financial losses.  The game can be easily described as "Counterstrike with magic" and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Even the team mechanic is similar to Counterstrike's CT versus T formula.  Teams are divided into soldiers of the corporate RNA (an evil mega-corporation) and Lineage (either freedom fighters or terrorists, depending on one's point of view) forces.  The teams will then battle in one of only three game modes, two of which are really variations of Capture the Flag.  In Extraction both teams are attempting to capture and escape with "the artifact" (pretty much a flaming skull on a stick supposedly containing powerful magic). 

In Raid the Lineage forces are attempting to capture and escape with the artifact while the RNA team defends against this, finding victory only through killing all the members of the Lineage team or preventing them from escaping with the artifact before time runs out.  Finally, Attrition is essentially a deathmatch.  The artifact is in play here as well, but serves a purpose in that a player who seizes it can see the location of each opposing team member on her screen and provide that information to her teammates via a button press.  In a nice twist on the typical CTF formula the artifact can be used as a melee weapon while being carried so the carrier is not completely defenseless.