Can we talk about Doomguy?

I keep hearing around the web that Doomguy is such a great protagonist because he doesn't care about the story and just wants to shoot some demons. Even a previous post in this community regarding the ludonarrative suggests that 'Doomguy cares as much about the story as we do!' Implying that we don't and he doesn't either.

I find this a little hard to swallow, though, and the contradiction of this idea - that Doomguy does indeed care about the story - is one of my favourite things about this game.

(Naturally, SPOILERS will follow.)

So many franchises have a silent protagonist, like Doomguy, who either never express any kind of sentiment ever, or eventually end up breaking that silence in a gruff mumbling tone. Doomguy, however, is a living character who expresses himself through actions rather than words and does so very effectively.

Throughout the game's campaign we get to see just how much Doomguy really does care beyond just killing demons. Does he enjoy killing demons? Yes. You can see that in the way he absolutely brutalises them for the game's glory kills. Is he just some kind of sociopathic sadist? Heck no!

When Doomguy wakes up he's approached by Samuel Hayden and instantly recognises him as a problem. This is why he throws away the monitor through which Hayden initially contacts him and later smashes the screen in the elevator. He isn't destroying all of this technology for a laugh or because he's not engaged in the game's narrative - on the contrary, he's doing this because he's engrossed in the narrative.

Hayden is a misguided scientist either looking to make the world a better place or advance his own career. One goal is definitely more noble than he the other but his methods definitely aren't. Doomguy recognises this - Hayden wants to utilise Hell energy as a resource. Doomguy understands the danger here. This is why he destroys the argent energy processing things while trying to disarm the argent tower. He's not just sticking two fingers up to Hayden's exposition about how important the argent energy is - he's completely aware of how important it is to Hayden and therefore knows he needs to destroy it. For humanity's sake.

Then, later, when destroying VEGA to open a portal back to Hell, what does Doomguy do? An AI which is happy to give up its life in servive to Hayden, who really doesn't have much use outside of powering the UAC facility, and never at any time asks to be saved, is backed up by Doomguy. Right before destroying VEGA's core he creates a backup of VEGA and stores him away, because that AI never asked to be part of Hayden's scheming and it certainly never did anything wrong. VEGA was always helpful throughout the game's story. Doomguy recognised that and saved VEGA's life for nothing in return.

There are many more moments in the game that I feel demonstrate how attached Doomguy is to the story. The tension between the two when Doomguy finally encounters Hayden in his office (and the neat little scene that unfolds if you try to pull the trigger on Hayden), the remorseless way Doomguy tears into demonkind, because he knows what they want to do to the human race and that just pisses him off, and the final interaction between Doomguy and Hayden at the end of the game. When Hayden pulls the rug out from under Doomguy you can see just how enraged he becomes and how much he wants to tear down Hayden. That doesn't sound like a protagonist divorced from the story to me.

Tl;dr Doomguy displays many times in the game's story that he is wholly invested in it. He is the perfect silent protagonist.

I cannot wait to see how the story unfolds in the inevitable sequel!