Here is an idea I had for a single player 3d game. You are trapped in a computer program, much like the Matrix. Everything you can remember is from that program, except one thought that occured due to a glitch. Unreadable by the program itself, this glitch, in the form of a thought, let you remember everything from the real world. What you remembered was astonishing. You were in the real world until the age of 40. The real world is technology controlled, way past the wireless generation. Historians of the real world can't pinpoint the exact year, but they guess it to be around 3000 years after the year 2000. The computer program is an exact replica of the year 2008. Countries, cities, and towns all exist exactly as they had. There's only one problem. The people. The people are an ai program, suspended right in front of your eyes as perfect animations. However, the ai programs switch bodies, but are the same at the core. The only thing they change is their emotionary responses. If the people of the real world knew about the glitch, they would destroy you immediately. The leader of this future world is a one-world power, a President of the World, a woman. Her name is Kristen. The people of this world are much like you, even in this simulated environment, because your mind is what controls you inside the program. It's your job to hack yourself out. There is only one way to do this. Destroy every ai program in sight. Then, due to running too few processes, the system will assume it is in emergency mode and shut itself down. They will know what you are doing as soon as you destroy the first ai program. The ai programs weren't meant to be destroyed, so every time you destroy a program it causes a bit of a glitch. You destroy them through destroying their bodies, naturally with a gun. That causes a system error, automatic shutdown. The time it takes to shut down the ai program and delete it is about 1 hour, due to the fact it was a huge file. That gives you ample time to destroy more ai programs, and thus proceed on with your mission. The ai programs weren't meant to destroy you, but they are excellent runners. They can dodge bullets, ect..., just like in the Matrix. You have no such powers. The reason they won't just shut the whole system down as soon as they realize what you are doing is because they want to maintain it after you die, for more people like you. Postscript: I think the last level could be in the real world. :p

you can move this to game writing if you want.

I will.

This sounds intriguing, but I don't understand why the people in the real world would destroy you if they knew about the glitch. In fact, I think the backstory for how society got to this point needs to be clarified a bit.

If I understand correctly, the purpose of the game will be to just shoot people in an environment that looks like the 2008 real world. Your targets aren't shooting back, so the challenge is just catching them. I think you should probably include police, military forces, etc, that will put up a fight, just to make the gameplay a bit spicier.

I does seem like it can be interesting, but it seems like it might be considered a "Grand Theft Auto clone" in how it's played.

I suggest maybe having core AI agents or runners that need to be destroyed that are directly responsible for causing a system breakdown.

Decent premise, but it seems an awful lot like the Matrix and may be viewed as a rip off. You could do it without it coming across that way, but you would have to give it your own style and flavor... you know, spice it up.
As for having the runners just try to escape, that won't work. People will get tired of playing a game where they have to just chase someone around and never get to actually get into a good combat situation. It would also make the AI seem more threatening if they actually did fight back. Like a previous poster said, add some military and police forces.
I like the overall idea, but maybe you should flesh it out a bit more. I'd love to give it a play if you decide to breath some life into it.

Ok, I have to be perfectly honest here.... I found this post insanely humorous. heres the mindset I came into right after reading it.

The year is 5000AD, and the first female president is elected in the nearly defunct megacorporation of the United States of American Enterprise. As is the case with all women, she wishes to further excerpt her control in society. Of course, unfortunately, in order to create a new position of authority in the government, she must prove to the board (which doubts the profitability of a female president) that a female holding this level of control would be benificial.

So the lady of the house produces a virtual simulation/world in which to show what would happen had females taken the presidential position earlier on. As such, she creates an alternate reality at which a female canidate stood a chance.

The year is 2008, Hillary Clinton was elected president of the united states of america.

:)