Remarkable that a post can be so definitive while also simultaneously completely missing the point.

Being able to talk Kellogg down, find some genius solution to the situation, worm our way out or non-lethally apprehend Kellog is not 'controlling him as an omnipotent superbeing.' (I honestly don't even know where to begin with what is wrong with that supposition. Are there a bunch of people out there advocating that we should just be able to snap our fingers and control Kellogg's actions as a god would? I've never seen that argument before.) Yes, he tries to commit death-by-sole-survivor and ultimately he succeeds in this because we only have two choices ourselves: kill him, or die. Everything else from how we speak to him to whether we initiate combat or only return fire is incidental to the outcome because it has no effect on it.

This particular brand of powerlessness reminds us that we are in a video game and that our choices are severely limited, constrained by what is already written, not writing our own destinies or choosing our own path. Any reminder that the walls of this reality exist is bad game design.