I have a huge fucking problem with the concept of a silent protagonist. How on Earth can you relate to a mute character? Gordon Freeman for example. He never says ANYTHING, so if his character is supposed to be based solely on his actions, then he's the fucking Terminator. He never eats, he never sleeps, he never bats an eyelash at murder or his own injuries... FUCK, he can't even say excuse me when NPCs block a hallway. No one else thinks this is really stupid? A work of fiction needs a protagonist with understandable goals and motivation.
In terms of player projection, he's something of a success, but that is not a good thing. If his character is nothing but the player, than Gordon Freeman is only casually invested in the creatures who call him their savior, a pervert who crouches next to Alyx for embarrassing lengths of time to get a juicy view of her ass, a man who is willing to hunt down every single last gooey grub, for hours and hours in an underground insect hive, rather than save his dying friend in a speedy manner.
You want to know a protagonist I felt a genuine kinship with? You want a character I felt immersed by?
Tommy, from 3D Realm's Prey. Why? Because he had a face, a name, and most importantly a voice. He reacted, and realistically, to the seriously messed up crap he was faced with. He vomits when the gravity shifts. He screams rage and pain when harmed. He cries out in panic and confusion when faced with surrealities that the player too cannot at first comprehend. He's grimly satisfied when things go his way, and often says what we're thinking. When he loses his loved ones, his pain IS our pain. The game uses the Half-Life 2 trick of never ever ever taking us out of the 1st person perspective, but without the character's voice, Gordon Freeman just seems like an oblivious oaf with no control or input on what happens unless he is directed by an NPC.
TL;DR: Gamers do not, unequivocally DO NOT, need voiceless protagonists in order to be a part of the narrative themselves. This is a shallow tactic that does more to break immersion than to enhance it. What games need is a protagonist of depth.
