I can't believe all the praise Human Revolution received. The game is very mediocre. There is a bunch of things wrong with it, like unbalanced XP and money system, lack of shops and interesting items/weapons. Some of the augs are plain stupid, like most of the hacking upgrades. The only way you can have fun with this game if you sneak around knocking dumb AI unconscious or shooting them with the tranq gun. Nothing wrong with that, but it becomes very repetitive: sneak through a vent, hack 100 terminals, punch someone facing a wall like a tard, pick up ammo you'll never use, read someone's inbox, turn on a faucet. In fact, the only time the game became creative is when you had to make your way through a room full of lasers. Granted it wasn't the most original or challenging task since they conveniently placed cover all the way through, but at least it was something different. And I'm not even gonna go into boss battles.

If I had to pick the most irritating thing, then it would be the energy system fueled by very limited supply of Snickers bars. Most of the time I spent crawling around with only one energy bar filled, since it's the only one automatically refilled without munching on chocolates. And isn't it fun to knock one guy out and follow the next one around like a puppy waiting on your battery to recharge? There are some redeeming factors, like the character models are pretty cool, the takedown animations, voice acting, and soundtrack. The coolest looking and functioning upgrade is the parachute one with the option to stun nearby enemies upon impact with the ground. But of course I couldn't **** use that if I wanted to be sneaky.

And graphics are consolized **** It's just plain for the exception of Jensen's apartment and Megan's office where you start off.

I did play the game to the end. It's not bad, it's average.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Overall I think this game is good. I hate RPGs, so I appreciate that you don't have to care about the story or listen to hours of NPC drivel. Instead, you can just play it as a stealth shooter-type game or whatever. But what totally kills this game are the arbitrarily difficult boss battles. There is nothing of sufficient challenge leading up to the boss battles to prepare you for them. If you've relied mostly on stealth tactics for other parts of the game, you're screwed because they don't work against bosses. Many have raved about how this game allows you to play in your own style. That's true except for the boss battles. Hopefully you just happened to select the correct augmentations along the way to get through them so they aren't too much of a disruption.

I was annoyed by the first boss battle but got through it well enough. But the second one where you fight the "she-aug" in front of the giant AI news-bot thing is just stupid. I used my augmented vision to chase her around the arena pumping 200 heavy machine-gun rounds into her then another 70 rounds from the combat rifle, then a few rounds from the pistol. There was no sign of this causing her any harm so it's strange she kept running away. She clearly had the impervious-to-bullets augmentation. By the way, when do I get one of those for myself? So my conclusion is that this game is lacking in continuity to a degree that may annoy those who do not normally play action-RPGs. Given how easily my character can die, it seems like 200 heavy machine-gun rounds should take care of just about any human, augmented or otherwise.… Expand

Deus Ex Human Revolution is a great game with an awesome cyberpunk atmosphere but the technical problems with stuttering on the PC destroy the experience. Eidos and Square Enix never managed to fully fix those. With the latest patches and drivers it got a bit better but the stutter is not gone entirely.

Poor graphics and poor colors. Action, aiming, story are a mess. The story, what story ????
Another **** console port with only 2 colors : orange and yellow.
Playing DX11 with everything maxed out will thow away my rig (i7 960 + 24GB DDR3 1600 + GeForce 560 Ti + SSD 240 GB SATA III) impossible to aim because of so much mouse lag.
You die and you die and again die, die, die..... and sometimes, after 50 direct headshots, one NPC is dead...
Stupid, pathetic, unuseful, brain dead A.I.
Just plain all ****
All critics review over 80 is beyond understanding. There must be bad taste and/or wrong I.Q. or hidden financial arrangement, otherwise, there is no possible explanation.… Expand

When i started to play this game i had a nagging feeling that i have seen it before - and not in a good sense, like returning to expected world but a feeling of something being out of place. After a day in the world it finally hit me - this game is nothing more than adoption and re-make of Vampire: The Masquerade â

I played this game for like maximum 30 minutes before it had managed to piss me off in every way a game can. It has crappy controls, not too good graphics, poor gameplay, uninteresting story, sucky guns with a even more sucky lasersight that just sucks at aiming. Also, the entire game sucks. Why did they stop producing great playable games with amazing gameplay, and start going all pzycho on graphics? which in my opinion doesnt matter for **** for how good the game is. **** THIS GAME! thank you.… Expand

Most overated game of the year! I enjoy the original Deus Ex, I liked the scale of it all. But this looks like some cheap copy of it that feels so much more enclosed. The graphics look 5 years out of date, the acting is terrible. I probably put in about 6 hours of gameplay and I just became bored. Bored of doing the same hacking, bored of doing the same hiding behind boxes, bored of crawling down ventalation shafts. Maybe if thats your thing, you`ll enjoy this game. But for me, I prefer some good solid sandbox action in a large environment with bang upto date graphics. This game has none of that.… Expand

average at best.it was one of games when all interest is gone and you just want to complete the game.the same theme through, hack computers, crawl through vents, easy bosses even on hard.it just was a huge overrated failure.

A little overrated... I enjoyed it, especially how there were always many ways to get through somewhere, but the RPG elements are very weak. The story is alright, but it's a little cliched and predictable at times. At times the game got a bit dull, but it was worth persevering with. Overall an enjoyable experience, but certainly nothing special.

Game is decent, nothing more
Graphics are a bit plain, animations in some cases are really bad, boss fights are silly, replayability is imo none, once i finished it i felt no urge to play it over again, which for a "gdr-like" game is bad
This game is way worse (considering the ages that passed) than the original ones

An enjoyable game, but too derivative with little or none of the innovation we expect from RPG shooters. It's interesting that a lot of the criticism levelled at the first Deus Ex sequel could easily be applied to HR, but wasn't. Like Invisible War, HR is essentially a console version of the first game, much bigger and shinier granted, but with most of the original's RPG elements simply reduced rather than improved or streamlined.
The inclusion of end of level bosses did feel out of sync with the rest of the game, but they weren't a huge departure the original. Also, it amazes me that although hours and hours of dialogue must have been recorded for the NPCs, they could only come up with two or three basic animations whilst they delivered their lines! I'd rather have more convincing animation from the characters I encounter in an RPG, that actually matches the speech, rather than hundreds of pointless side-quests that only 10% of people will actually bother attempting.… Expand

Deus Ex suffers from its own brilliance, unfortunately. From the moment i started playing I loved the sense of freedom, playing a Jensen who did not kill if possible, and moved silently through the shadows under his enemies noses had an unexpected thrill, and the world of Deus Ex is brilliantly deep, presenting many interesting questions to the player. However, several relatively petty flaws made this game a bit of a chore to play.
Human Revolution presents the player with a beautifully realised world at the start of humanity's move towards body and mind enhancement with technology. The cities players travel through are fascinating, with an abundance of hidden areas, side quests and a wide variety of routes into any situation. I never played the original Deus Ex games, but i instantly grasped the world of Human Revolution. The enhancements that humans, including the player character, Adam Jensen, have turned to are not the slick, barely visible improvements of other sci-fi series', they are crudely bolted on as replacements to whole limbs or eyes, or implanted into the brains of users. Despite this lack of subtlety, the enhancements are beautifully and lovingly modeled in game, providing some of the best graphics in the game. Unfortunately, graphics is one of the main weaknesses of this game. The biggest flaw of the game in this department is how demanding it is on your system. Playing on a pc that can flawlessly run both Mass Effect games at max settings and all the Assassins Creed games at fairly high settings without issue, i experienced game breakingly bad performance in Human Revolution until the graphics were set to minimum... therefore any graphical beauty of this game was lost on my PC. The graphical style of the game is undeniably well thought out and beautiful, but it could definitely use some love with smoother, more up to date graphics and an engine that does not eat system resources so badly. The gameplay of this game is a mixed bunch. The RPG elements are very impressive, with every upgrade to Jensen's enhancements having a noticeable effect on gameplay. The inventory is cleverly managed in a system new to me. Having such a limit on inventory space led to a lot of planning how to fit things in, and demanded that i chose my style of play, as i could not carry more than a handful of weapons, and had to leave space for health items and stims if i wanted to survive. This is a huge improvement over the typical unlimited inventories of many great RPGs such as MassEffect1 and KotOR. The stealth aspects of this game are equally well designed, with a wide network of ventilation shafts and secret entrances throughout the game. Moving past patrolling enemies gave a particular thrill, as did stealth kills or knockouts. Unfortunately, i could never really forget that all "secret" paths and entrances are not only in plain sight, they were all designed for that exact reason by the developers. The buildings of Deus Ex do not require the players ingenuity to find the safest route from A to B, the developers designed the building from the start to have a safe route. This is an unavoidable flaw of stealth games. The shooting felt fairly slow and unresponsive, it has not moved on in the era of Call of Duty and other modern fps games. While fans of older shooters may enjoy this, the shooting feels noticeably flawed in the eyes of the modern generation of gamers. By far the biggest weakness of the game is the Boss fights, which are exactly that. There is no way to escape, attack them stealthily etc... they must be confronted in an open fight, leaving stealth players unprepared and horribly outgunned.
The storyline is well realised, although i got a bit confused at one point in the early game. Most of the characters are deep and well scripted, and the story compliments the setting very well. All in all, this is a worthwhile game for any fan of RPG games and older shooters, but fans of linear modern shooters may feel frustrated by the lack of guidance and strong RPG elements, as well as the weak shooting system. This could definately open the doors for more Deus Ex games, although a graphical overhaul may be required.… Expand

I give 8 because it has an amazing story. The ending makes player to think what is going on. Very interesting way to think about human gene modification. For a first person shooting game, I can't say they did a good job on shooting. But I like it has many interesting weapons, and hacking into enemies' computers are quite fun.

Disappointment here. Cliche story I guessed after 30min gameplay (before end of intro). Square enix bosses (ie. you either know the trick or you die helplessly). Also a nice shooter that requires a bit of strategy. Secret paths looking like obvious ones. Don't look for a "beyond good and evil" experience.

I loved the first Deus Ex game (as a kid) and played it through, so my expectations were high to begin with. Deus Ex Human Revolution didn't get even close to meeting my expectations. The game is linear, the "cities" feel artificial and dead, you can't really interact with anything except through the few obvious paths. Except for that, the voice acting is not convincing and the gold coloring of everything is annoying. Bottom line: the game wasn't convincing and wasn't fun. I stopped playing after a few hours of gameplay.… Expand

The audo delay problem hasn't been fixed in one and a half month among with another technical difficulties. Unplayable with continous delay of any sound effect.

A solid game, but something was lacking overall to make this great. The good: The augmentation variety was awesome and fun to play with, the gaming style (Stealth or Guns Blazing) was refreshing, the side quests added to the game in a good way, the graphics and environmental dark and gold tone were awesome, the character dialog was well written, and the weapon variety and upgrading was satisfying. The bad: the story was lacking a little and could have been more captivating by showing and setting up new levels or important situations, there were quite a few loose ends in the story that were never fully explained which was disappointing, the voice acting didn't sync very well with the character's facial animation (almost a travesty sometimes), the connection between the characters was fairly dull and forced (besides Sarif and Jensen), and some of the graphic textures and sky overlays were not good for a DX11 game. Would I buy this game again? Probably, but timing and the release date is everything nowadays.… Expand

A game that could have been one of my favorites of all time, dragged down by unforgivably awful boss battles. Those of you who plan of stealthing through this entire game will be disappointed to learn that your skills will be useless in boss fights and crippling in an event towards the end. Make no mistake, this is a game that players should not pass up, but be prepared to deal with some frustrations in this otherwise phenomenal game.… Expand

Why ruin a game with bad boss battles. Infuriating! I invested most on my points in stealth and hacking which worked great until I met the first boss. How the hell is this boss battle supposed to fit in with the rest of the game? Am I supposed to replay the game from the beginning and invest all my points in combat? This could have been a great game without it.

A wonderful return to the form of the original game in which caution, exploration and roleplaying pay off at least as much as straight shooting. However, the PC version is the least stable game I've played in years and I experienced many hangups near the start (around the time of the emergency patches) but then again later after some 7 hours play. For this reason I can only rate it "decent" overall. If they fix the bugs it's an absolute classic.… Expand

Picked this up on the cheap for $10 at target and I'm just not feeling it. I'm not a fan of the sierra 3d engine, the controls are stiff and lack any type of fluidity found in most fps games. Additionally the acting is pretty terrible in this game. I know most people are fan's of the first game but for me, as a newcomer to the series this just didn't pull me in. I doubt I'll finish it.

I'm going to debunk the old deus ex pc fans by saying that a lot of what they are saying is simple nostalgia. You have to remember the old deus ex as a game where the only way to disable someone was to hit them over the back of the head with a pole or stun them. You could not get into a firefight most of the time without ramping up your heavy weapon skills and the tranq bow was an absolute joke. (Remember? You shoot them and then they run around for five minutes until they collapse?) Each mission was the same thing, shoot (or stun) xyb then talk to xyb and then collect or disable something. The levels looked like something a prison inmate would design (I remember the "fort" being a large square with holes in it). They did a brilliant job bringing Deus Ex to life again. Seriously, compare the two and see for yourself. I have three gripes with the game, 1: The atrocious boss fights. 2: The melee system running on little bars of energy(you can't cloak and then disable the enemy without eating an energy bar lol). 3: the enemy has incredible aim and can even hit you behind cover most of the time. WTF Eidos?! Those boss fights will deter any chance you had of getting a majority to enjoy this game till the end.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I just finished DE: Human Revolution with mixed feelings. I wanted to like this game, but most of the time I didn't enjoy it very much. I bought this game because of the interesting plot of the previous 2 Deus Ex games. I have to say I am not totally satisfied. First of all, it is very easy to guess what is going on and what is going to happen. This spoiled some of the fun and motivation. Secondly, what comes to freedom of choice, Human Revolution is like DE1: you really have only one. You can choose a playing style that suits you, but you can't affect the course of your character very much. Only in the end you can really choose.

So here comes the number one flaw: there are many missions where you sneak past 30 enemies to meet a big bad boss, just to notice that he/she has moved elsewhere already, or even worse, escapes with a cutscene!! How bad can a game designer be, to make cutscene escapes?

Number two flaw: you can't choose who you work for! I wanted to get rid of that greedy bastard Sarif and his **** Megan right away, but I couldn't!! Pisses me off. DE2 made this really well, but now this system was removed, why?

The game without the plot was rather ok, but kinda repetitive. Sneak/shoot, hack, go thru vents. Repeat 50 times. In short: interesting plot, but not as interesting as in DE1. More limited plot and freedom of choice than in DE2. Basically the same game as DE1, with improved graphics and Metal Gear Solid sneaking.… Expand

This sequel to the Classic Deus Ex has a good deal going for it: a complex, yet believable plot line; better-than-average dialog; fairly well-developed and unique characters; pretty good graphics and PLENTY of action. The weapons are very good, and the augmentation system is nicely integrated into the story line, while the augmentations themselves work well and provide the player with a wide latitude for character creation. All-in-all a well thought-out effort by Eidos Montreal. However, the most serious flaw - Boss Fights - is, unfortunately, a fatal one. C'mon Eidos this is not the 1990's! What were you thinking when you decided to include these juvenile throwbacks in an otherwise fairly sophisticated game? I alternated between laughing and crying as I went through them - so ridiculous, so unnecessary, so indicative of a lack of imagination and confidence in your product. I played through all the Boss Fights, but in doing so, I lost all interest in a second play through. You could have redeemed yourselves by providing the player with the choice of skipping this nonsense. For the future, please realize that not all of your customers are trigger happy twelve year-olds who MUST be appeased with obligatory foolishness.… Expand

I feel betrayed by the horrible boss battles. Just got to the first boss battle, I had basically just a pistol and about 50 bullets on me since I had worked primarily as a stealth guy. I had no health items on me either. Tried to get through the first boss about 10-15 times before I just gave up and uninstalled this game. It's garbage.

The good: I enjoyed the plot, side quests, hacking minigame (initially), and don't regret playing it as a whole,but there is some flaws. The bad: Graphics ..are just ok, it's repetitive and with a lack of detail, optimized for a slow console perhaps? Noticed no difference with Dx11. Game play .. is somehow too easy, even when playing on hardest, as covers = imba, and guards, even after you throw a grenade their way, will assume it's nothing when the 30 seconds hard timer is up, and besides, hardly even bother come search after you when you're noticed even. (Prefer stealth mechanics as in Metro 2033).
The 3rd person cinematic for takedowns and fall implant breaks up the flow and becomes irritating, the cover mode/look however, is cool. The different approaches, so much spoken of, feels like a repetition over and over, with air ducts, hackable door locks or brute force. The ugly*:
Finally, the end credits, it feels like I'm visiting some distant relatives which is having a slideshow of people I care nothing about. To be harsh, it breaks the immersion I had in the game, and becomes everything but a reward for finishing.

* Just having fun, they are all like super model looking. Lots of implants I'm sure.… Expand

I did not play through the first Deus Ex or IW but I know at the very least the first game was amazing and people consider it to be a highly developed game. I suppose I took some of this into account when playing through HR and maybe I shouldn't have. Don't get me wrong this game starts out spectacular and it feels as though you have a ton of options and ways to achieve how you would like to play. HR also gives a great depth in story and really foreshadows a lot of coming events that will play their course. After a little under half way through the game though and for others it could be sooner the game really starts to fall short. Limited usage of Praxis points, difficulty, voice acting, choices not mattering at all, and feeling that you already know what is going to happen actually happens are the big issues for me. Why do I say there are limited uses for the talent system in the game? For one hacking is everything and if you don't pick it up you will be playing a regular shooter. After picking up hacking their is only some niche abilities that you can pick up and they really don't alter your gameplay much if any. Picking up the ability to lift any object will do you the same good as being able to punch through walls. It's like you pick up one of them you don't need to pick up the others because one size fits all. After receiving ~15 points you won't even need to place anymore in your setup because you don't need them. This leads into the difficulty which I played on the hardest. If you choose to go the stealth route you will find that this game is easier than hell. Simply wait until your energy is at full walk to the person you intend to knock out and , don't worry about them seeing you because apparently soldiers don't have peripheral vision, and success. If you do intend to play this game on it's hardest settings you have to deal with an outdated cover system that is dreadfully boring. Granted it is a lot harder than stealthing but since when is poking out of a wall to fire a round in the head and hiding again fun? Normally I don't care about voice acting and everyone in the game was very well voiced in my opinion except for the one that matters. Adding on to his douchey apparel Jensen is the uberdouche of video games and it will be hard to dethrone the man. On another note the choices in this game don't matter at all. When it comes down to the ending you choose what you wish and it plays a cut-scene. That sure was fun when it was done oh I don't know ~10 years ago? Even when you wanted to be the dick or the good guy other little nuances would be added in so your choices actually meant something. Hell I even did something I knew would end up being terrible for me but did it affect me in any way? Nope, they had a cut-scene for that to make all my blatant stupidity just go away. Which brings us to how bad the story was, not only did you know what was going to happen half way through the game there were no surprises or twists. It was like, "Look at our visuals aren't they pretty? Oh and don't worry about the story we have more visuals for you!." The game was written like a bad Hollywood movie where you know what is going to happen from the foreshadowing that they do at the start. Getting past all of that, the game lasted me ~30 hours and from what I am thinking there is no replay ability. 45 dollars for that much of a game is just not worth it in my book and I am glad I played a friends copy and did not waste the money on it. I really want to give this game a 4/10 just because of the douche voice but I suppose a 5/10.… Expand

If you like spending the first few hours after the first action sequence of the game doing nothing but running around talking to people, scrolling through dialogue options, and playing a stupid hack mini-game; then you will enjoy this game. If you actually would like to have a FUN gaming experience with more actual game-play, then stay away and don't waste your money on this game. You would be better just renting a sci-fi movie, sitting on a couch, and watching it. The main characters voice is annoying, and...did I mention the stupid hack mini-game that pretty much occupies all your time? Yeah it's lame...… Expand

Still a pleasant game... But i was quite disappointed by this game.
The first DX was done in 2000. Eleven years ago. And this new game give like no innovation at all to the license. Same interractions... no more. Most of the places are just plenty corridors and desktop room with computers to hack,...ect...
I was waiting more of it.

Great game at heart, but hampered unnecessarily by several issues. The story is pretty good but seems to borrow heavily from other classic movies and games. The graphics and art style are excellent; the neon yellow theme is really cool. The upgrade system is straightforward and interesting, not to mention practical and useful. With each upgrade you feel like you're purchasing something you will take advantage of, and you do. Now on to the cons. For much of the first year post-release the game suffered from a debilitating stuttering issue. The fact that the game was sold in such a condition is disgraceful. Square Enix should be embarrassed and I never want to see a game released in such condition again. However I believe the stuttering issue has been fixed close to a year after release. Aside from the technical problems, there are other issues with the game. The controls are not customizable enough on PC (e.g. there is no way to hold sights instead of toggle sights) which I found very annoying. Also there is an almost overbearing emphasis on stealth. Sometimes I found missions taking forever to complete because of the difficulty of the AI. You are extremely vulnerable even with armor upgrades. This means that you're almost forced to stealth your way through the entire game. I'm not saying it's too hard... it's hard, but I'm fine with that. I just wish there was a way to play other than sneaking around everywhere, hiding behind boxes for 30 seconds at a time and timing your movements precisely. That gets boring and repetitive after a while. Overall, it's a 6/10 but still worth checking out. It's got many positive aspects and the things that bothered me might not bother someone else.… Expand

disappointment really.......terrible graphics and art design, clunky controls, small maps, illogically dramatic, long and noisy takedowns, unimaginative boss fights, unrealistic stupid AI reminds me of old commandos games.......on the up side story is good with lots of choices, stealth is decent and some augs are cool.......but really overall its a mess

Whether or not you're a fan of the Deus Ex series is irrelevant. The simple fact that the game combines so many solid gaming elements, from third person cover shooting to stealth game-play, means the game is going to be enjoyable to any demographic. The story itself is a little hard to follow and the writers throw quite a bit of philosophical jargon into the mix, but it's really just a means to take you from one area to the next and give you as many options for tackling an objective as you can think of. From guns blazing to sneaking through areas as a ghost, every tactic you use to complete your mission really makes you feel like an augmented bad-ass. Throw in some great art design and a stirring cyberpunk soundtrack and you've got one awesome game. I could mention the sometimes glitched AI and the often cumbersome and ambiguous map system, but that's really just nitpicking on something that is a really solid package.… Expand

Tallow summarized this game pretty well from experienced stealth player point of view, like me. Although if someone wants to just quickly shoot-and-punch-them-all, the game will be fun for sure. So why my 6/10? Because I've been told to go stealth road by the game itself, chosen that road and while it was playable for a while, I eventually got to first boss. I was thrown into a small area, wearing stun and tranq weapons, stealth and hacking augs and had to fight a terminator, with a leading cutscene so UTTERLY DUMB that I lack words to describe it (he - my lovely player avatar hero - waltzed in into a room and got ambushed! HE - I WASN'T EVEN IN CONTROL WTF). Bottom line I ran around and saveloaded for like 2 hours, there just wasn't enough equipment and possibilities to take this "thing" down at easy (EASY!) level, and getting into meele resulted in a funky oneshot punch in my face! Or maybe there was a way, but 2 hours was enough trying for me. I've uninstalled and I'll go back to it maybe in a year to fastforward it terminator way, the way I SHOULD have been playing apparently. The main reason I did that, was simply being told by game itself to go stealth, avoid combat and be a pacifist and then be literary SCREWED OVER, put into exact opposite without any out of jail card available. This is nothing like original deus ex, even tho that game sucked in so many ways, it did give me one redeeming quality - that I could just equip GEP gun and oneshot that annoying boss aug when he ran at me, with his goodies all turned off, trying to initialize dialogue. No, this game designs the gameplay, it tells me what is the right way, what is the wrong way, it sterilizes everything to narrow the possibilities to JUST THAT and it does this so badly as to ruin not only my fun, but literally the game I'm playing, forcing me to start over!!! It is like old tabletop rpg where some jack*** game master suddenly tells you a cow fallen on you from the sky and it's game over. This story repeats over and over in every single super duper rated popular highly marketed AAA title I reach for, so I'm gonna filter them from now on and just outright ignore.… Expand

There will always be people who can't see past the "not so great" elements of a game, and let's face it, there are no games that have no "not so great" elements. This game is not a FPS and there will definitely be people who don't "get it", I don't mean that as an insult, it's just a personal preference. For me, I was a big fan of the 1st Deus Ex, I still rate it as my fav game ever (and it's not like that game didn't have some bugs and shoddy animations), this game is a worth successor, it just clicked for me, there is more then enough good and occasional excellent elements for the little bugs and the not so great animations to not matter.… Expand

A good and worthy follow-up of Deus Ex, though the graphics are console level. The world is great, intriguing, funny and generelly well laid out. The only major let-down is, that this game over-emphasises hacking. W/o hacking, you are missing on a lot of the content.
Basically, this is one of the better console ports. Deus Ex could have deserved better (a real PC game), but all in all, this one works fine. It was definitely a good decision to delay shipment of the game to fix it after the first bad reviews came in.… Expand

This is a very decent game, with a great plot, nice atmosphere, way closer to the first Deus Ex than Invisible war was; and it's probably one of the best console ports I've ever seen so far. So why only 6 ?

Because THIS particular game has been awaited soooo long by most gamers that a lame *CONSOLE* *PORT* just doesn't fit. If you're discovering Deus Ex with this title, it must be fun and pleasing, but when you've enjoyed the first Deus Ex several times, to see it taken to this level of coarseness only for profit, it's just sad and frustrating. I might be a little harsh, but really, I expected more from this game. Way more. Now, let's hope some independent developer will bring some decent alternative to this title; since the gaming industry seems to care too less about quality and too much about profit.… Expand

Deus Ex: Human Revolution follows in the foot steps of Deus Ex 1 with the addition a more passively-orientend skill system and much more fluent stealth gameplay through the use of a third-person cover system and insta-kill buttons. Unfortunately, in other areas it still feels highly dated. The graphics are definitely sub-par to the point where you'll find yourself wondering why they made the game as ugly as it is in certain places; for a game that's all about advanced technology, they certainly aren't utilizing any. The inventory management is very dated and confusing as items stack in odd manners and the game will auto-manage your inventory for you, causing it to shift content around to make other items fit. Another big issue with the game is the wooden acting and the lack of decisions to make. A large part of the game puts the player on rails with the occasional choice to make but none of this affects the outcome as you will literally be given buttons to press to choose the ending you think you want. (There are 4 endings as usual) Nothing of what you have done during the game will affect the outcome of the story nor will you ever hear back on what the result of your actions were. Regardless of these issues, there is a good variety of weapons available for the player to experiment with and most missions offers the player several ways of getting through. Some side-missions break from this sort of universal-compatability and might be unbeatable for players with certain builds which is unfortunate as there's nothing more frustrating than freedom being promised but not delivered. I played the game on the highest difficulty right from the get-go and I found that although the game isn't very difficult and the AI not very smart, they tend to be highly accurate when you are not making use of the third-person cover system and less accurate when you do. This kind of artificially induced difficulty is unwanted in first-person shooters and is obviously console-inspired. It's very difficult to aim from cover with weapons that do not come with laser sights which means you may die a lot while attempting to zero in on an enemy. On the subject of the AI not being very bright; this game is extremely forgiving when it comes to making mistakes. Most of the time you can simply hide somewhere and the guards will give up looking for you, even if you just mowed down half the staff, they'll just resume patrol. Needless to say this does not help make the game more realistic. I found the story to be interesting albeit somewhat unengaging and sometimes difficult to follow. The latter could be due to me sometimes losing interest in listening to the one-dimensional characters and the silly conversational mini-games that rather than allowing you to put your mark on conversations, forces you to "solve the riddle" when it comes to talking to people. Apparently, Adam Jensen is more of a smooth-talker than your average politician. Last but not least, everyone's biggest gripe with the game: The boss fights. They'd be at home in any FPS game but Deus Ex. Even the developers regret putting them in! All I can do is recommend that you take either the heavy machine-gun or the pre-order grenade launcher whenever you expect a boss fight; should end the fight within a few minutes no matter the difficulty. Assuming you can stay alive, that is. The game does not feature really feature healing items but requires you to patiently wait while the health (quickly) regenerates.… Expand

Long story short, it's an amazing game with some very overlooked flaws. The augmentation system was poorly planned out, your choices in-game had no effect in anyway what-so-ever in anything, the boss battles were half assed and cut scenes were dreadful. My major issue with this game was the AI, you can almost compare them to fairly polished Counter Strike Source bots. If you have the patience and efficiency for tactical espionage shooters or loved Metal Gear Solid you might find some love for Deus Ex: Human Revolution.… Expand

A had an awesome time playing it. Despite some minor faults, the game is beautiful, with a great storyline, well it's very entertaining!
Still there is room for improvement, the fact the you have to be very close to the objects to use them is kind annoying, and the end is kindda silly.

As someone who is very attracted to infiltration games, wherein players can choose how to approach given situations--either by storm or stealth--"Deus Ex Human Revolution" did not disappoint me. The added bonus is that it also has mystery and conspiracy, which I also have a deep appreciation for.

Note that I never played either the original "Deus Ex" or "Invisible War", so my opinion is not informed by any past experience with the prequels; and this is not a review or an expose on the features of the game, but a surface-level stream-of-consciousness jotting of a quick thought with the intention of merely scoring it.

I hated on it at first. It really took a while for me to warm up to the game as I thought it was pretty dull in the beginning, but by the time I got to Hengsha, I started to really enjoy "Human Revolution". This at a time in my life where even games I used to enjoy seem stale to me and I've all but stopped playing games. So I think that says something for the appeal of the game. I have yet to finish as I take month-long breaks, but every time I play, I never feel disappointed. The infiltration aspect is par excellence--Up there with the MGS and SC games and the challenge is worthwhile. The environments, although over-abundantly 'gold', still possess quite a bit of atmosphere. And the story can be very engrossing at times.

What I didn't care for at all were the boss battles. I suppose some of the inspiration for them may have come from the MGS series, but they were nowhere near as fitting or engaging. They just seemed like clumsy add-ons to a game that would have been fine other wise. What's really disappointing about them however is that in a throw-down between two seriously OP transhumans, you would think the fights would be as epic as something out of a high-octane anime. But alas, they were little more than predictable shootouts.

O well. Overall, the seratonin in my brain was much healthier playing "HR" than it has been playing games of late, so the devs done something right.

Play it.… Expand

Amazing game. This is exactly I wanted to play when bought Deus Ex: Inwisible war! Good story and one of the best gameplay ever. Best game of 2011! Best game for the last ten years!

This game is, in a word, magnificent. Not perfect of course (I find the cover mechanics a bit clunky, why the hell can't I stash stuff in my apartment rather than carry it all around and I wish I had a constant third person option)...

... but the story is intelligent and well realised, dialogue options are generally very sensible, the voice acting is good and you can practically smell the street side food in China.

It is true to the original in oh so many ways and is thus a very worth prequel. HIGHLY recommended.… Expand

The spirit of Deus Ex is kept alive in this FPS/RPG hybrid that focuses on re-inventing itself to fit the current generation of gaming. There are quirks, but the plot and exploration elements keep it from being as mundane as things like Resistance. It feels more like Mass Effect 2 (dear lord) and Splinter Cell. Keep in mind the first Deus Ex preceded all of the similar games on the market now in the past 10 years.… Expand

The original Deus ex is my favorite game of all time. As such, I was going into this with a lot of bias - a lot of it being negative, since Warren Spector was not involved in this project. The bottom line, however, is that HR passes with flying colours - it does have a different feel, but Eidos Montreal clearly loved the original, and as such, have paid a lot of respects to it - that, and they learnt a lot from the original too.

The storyline is much in the same vein as the original, but is it's own beast... I think it does well. This is helped by a very richly detailed and immersive world, which really does live up to the pedigree of the original game. It is extremely linear, but such is Deus Ex, and I have absolutely no complaints - to me, it is blasphemy to see some people complain about a "lack of sandbox" here - it is not that kind of game.

Graphics are not as good as I was expecting, however. There're areas where things are a bit lax (some textures, for example) and animation can be annoying and twitchy. In spite of this, the game has a wonderfully unique black & gold aesthetic, which enhances immersion even more! Music is very much ambient, but it works. The gameplay is good, and much the same as the original. I liked how upgrades worked in the original more, but the (purely) augmentation-based system here works just as well, I suppose. A heavier emphasis on hacking is alright, but I'm sad to lockpicks and multitools go - still ,these are the nitpickings of a crazed fan. :) Otherwise, you really are able to pass through levels in your own way, although certain paths will always require more patience! The game does very well in rewarding such exploration, and I think one of the greatest things about this game is that it's a world you'll *want* to explore.

I've given it 8 and not 10 because of some annoying technical issues... I have not had any issue with load times, but I have experienced lots of crashes running Dx11 mode... annoying. The game is buggy as hell, but I'm sure these will be ironed out in time.

Ultimately, this is a wonderful game which I am enjoying thoroughly. Like the original, it is not for everyone... and like the original, it may take a tiny bit of a patience to get to the good stuff, but all the same, this is a game deserving of the "deus ex" title. Coming from me, that says a lot.… Collapse

This game has been a gripping escape for me. There are a few shaky spots but there are many more great things that keep me coming back for more.

The bad: Conversations. The lip sync is off most of the time and the NPCs almost always over-gesticulate (especially Malik). The voice acting isn't great for the most part, but it works. For a big budget game like this you'd have thought they could have gotten some better actors. Also, one final gripe: if you're skipping a portion of a conversation with the space key, it doesn't just skip the part that the subtitles are displaying, it skips the speaking character's entire remaining dialogue. Also the dialogue isn't stored for review unlike everything else in the game.
World depth. The city hubs are very similar to the way that ME and ME2 are handled (the map provides you a view of where you can go, not what is there necessarily, it makes it easier to get around but it isn't very realistic) There is a scarcity of side-quests and the game play isn't as open as I'd like. You're forced to go between the various locations; you don't get to pick where you're going to go. There aren't many NPCs to chat with. If you jot down the codes from the first time through you can save a lot of hassle but lose the experience. Also, for the Ghost and smooth operator bonuses, you never know when they start keeping track of them or when you no longer qualify.
Inventory: you have a standard grid based inventory with massive weapons (the sniper rifle takes up 2x6) and odd stacking rules (you can stack ammo, health power ups, energy bars, energy packs, but not energy "tubs" or grenades) also, when picking up a weapon, you automatically just take the ammo. This makes selling weapons to get more credits a repetitive chore as you have to drop your weapon (that you've probably modified) pick up the new weapon, go to a dealer, sell it then go back and get your weapon. I think most of these choices were made to encourage players to chose a stealth vs kill play style (with stealth, you'd leave the killing weapons behinds, stock up on stunning weapons and energy packs).
Bosses: bosses are pretty easy and straight-forward. The big problem comes for stealth players because there's no way to incapacitate bosses and no tricky way to manipulate the environment, you have to kill them with live ammo. Movement: With all the free-running games out there now (especially made by Eidos Montreal) and you being the penultimate augmented human, you'd think they'd have let you climb more. I like the cover system, but can stand to be improved.
Energy consumption: You need energy to use some of your augmented skills. You can get more batteries as you need them but for some reason only the last one will recharge (unless you only half use one)...I guess goes along with your play choices as to whether or not you want to go stealth and use a lot of energy. The problem there is that there is a scarcity of vendors selling energy products and when they do sell them they have a very limited supply.

Wow, a lot of complaints! Most of those are pretty nit-picky in my opinion. The game still stands up on it's own.

The good: The story. The plot is great, in my opinion. It's a bit of a rehash of and remix of other Deus Ex games but what starts out as a simple plot gets more and more complicated. If you've read a conspiracy theory laden game before you'll probably be able to guess some of the twists as they come but it was exciting and kept me gripped. I thought the game play was good, tilted to non-lethal game play (more respect from NPCs, more exp, more opportunities) but I could see turning the game into a bloodbath for fun on a second run through.
The speaking mini-games were pretty in depth even if they were fairly linear. in the persuasion talks you have, on one time through a speech option that originally worked in my favor was scorned the second time around. I thought it was interesting the bit of realism they added there. The augmentations are great and add to the game play. It's nicely explained away why most of them are unusable unlike in the first one where you had to add on as you played and why they'd call an agent "trained" when they can't hold a rifle steady or hack the simplest computers.
The visuals and visual concepts are also great. It's a dark renaissance world with bleak and glorious all mixed in.

Despite the problems, this is a great game, highly recommended.… Expand

This is a solid, mostly polished game that's worth the cover price and the time spent playing it (30 hours for my first run-through, and I'm certain to replay it at least once more). The gameplay is fun and reminiscent of the two previous Deus Ex titles, with several possible approaches to each task or challenge, as promised. However, it has several weak spots that hold it back from being the truly immersive experience I think Eidos was aiming for, disqualify it from an 8 or 9 score, and prevent it from rising to the greatness of other action-oriented RPGs such as Mass Effect, Bioshock or Fallout New Vegas, or character-driven action games like GTA IV. The first is the stiff facial animation, which look much the same as they did in Deus Ex: Invisible War back in 2003. Faces are frozen and unexpressive, and lip movement bears almost no relation to speech, even on a very high-spec PC. The botched facial animation greatly diminishes the otherwise excellent character, weapon and environment rendering, which really shines with DirectX 11 tessellation support. The second flaw is dialog, both as it is written and spoken. As in all story-driven games, the dialog in DE:HR must carry some of the burden of plot exposition, and this will inevitably lead to some stiff-sounding, didactic statements. But this game's dialog is weighted too much on the expository side, at the expense of creating empathy or identification with the characters. NPCs baldly state facts that the main character (Adam Jensen) should already know, and Jensen himself is too much given to bland expository statements. Those lines of dialog designed to show character or develop relationships between characters are filled with action-movie or TV clichés. Other games in futuristic settings, such as the underrated Enslaved, created empathy for characters with far less dialog. Others, such as Bisoshock and Portal 1 & 2, let the environment carry part of the expository burden â… Expand

This has got to be one of the best games ever made, the storyline just drags you in the charicters are deep and fit well, the shooting system and inventory are very similar to the first game but more polished. I only hope they expand this and make another game. The inventory holds just enough equipment to make you have to think what you need rather than what you want. Like any deus ex game there are many vents to crawl through and plenty of places to pick suckers off at a distance with a sniper rifle... you know what they say "you can run but you'll only die tired" the charicters are awsome and i particualry liked Eliza cassan. Come on with the next deus ex game!… Expand

I've been playing this game extensively since they leaked the preview build 3 months ago and I must say that first experience is what convinced me to purchase the full product. My first complete playthrough has clocked 32 hours according to Steam (and by no means was I fully exploring everything possible) and I certainly feel my money has been well spent as opposed to the frequent 6 hour FPS rehashes released. First and foremost, the style and artwork in the game is simply breathtaking. There were times when I would simply stare out into the beautiful vistas they have created in this game in awe. The only other game I can recall with such exemplary scenery in recent years is Mirror's Edge, and i couldn't help but feel inspired. The overall atmosphere is similarly superlative with Michael McCann's brilliant score which fits the cyberpunk theme perfectly, though I will say it is not a patch on the great music from the first Deus Ex. The pacing in 'Human Revolution' is also impressive; just when I wanted more story, I was given the next twist in the tale; just when I wanted more combat, fifteen enemies burst into the room warranting a quick decision over how they could be dispatched. There were several instances where I felt I was actually required to use my brain as opposed to many other games as of late in considering just how I would deal with enemies in the easiest way. Similarly, I felt the inventory system was an apt inclusion, forcing you to consider exactly what equipment you would likely need for the next encounter. The 'persuasion' conversations throughout the game also required me to take a step back and consider just which response would convince a character to see things my way, and felt like I was actually having an impact on the game world. There are multiple paths to achieve each objective, and there is usually an alternative route to avoid any danger. Because of this I had alot of fun exploring the city hubs in the game, as much fun as I did exploring Hong Kong in Deus Ex 1. You can pay a hobo 1000 credits for information on an armoury code, only to find it later after hacking into someone's email, thus exploration is definitely encouraged. Mentioning graphics, I was playing on maximum settings with a GTX 570 and the framerate was consistently high (It also played well in DX9 on a 4870 and a Core 2 Duo). However, the game did crash far more frequently than I would have liked, especially during the 2nd city hub, though i'm sure this will be fixed in a future patch. The textures were impressive on maximum settings, though the character models looked quite plasticy. One minor irritation is that the animations of the characters' faces seem to 'twitch' and it's very distracting (and unrealistic). Other minor niggles are the console-ish feel of the mouse scrolling which is far worse in Invisible War, but not present on FPS games that are made primarily for the PC. The enemy AI is definitely not the best, though I can't think of any games where it's noticeably improved. Enemies would sometimes spot me from the other side of a large room, despite being crouched behind an object, and other times you can takeout an enemy right in front of another without them batting an eyelid. The major disappointment for me, however (and the reason I won't give the game a 10) was the endings (though the REAL ending did atone for this slightly). I would much have preferred an insight into what effect my choice had on the world in the immediate future, and I was severely disappointed that this was not included. Regardless of this flaw, this is by far the best game I have played this year, and unless anything is subsequently released which is notably better (which I sincerely doubt as it would have to be an OUTSTANDING game), this will be my GOTY.… Expand

Personally, I absolutely liked the overall feeling and mechanics of the game. It is definitely worthy of the Deus Ex label, and I would even consider nominating it as my personal game of the year.

Pros: - Deep story with various options. - Smart enough AI. (not perfect though) - Great replay value.

Cons: - The dynamic light and shadow effects is not great. Many light sources in the game doesn't cast shadows. - The lip syncing in this game is bad. - The cut scene transition is not as smooth as the original game.

Quite frankly this game is a unpolished jewel. I enjoyed this game a lot but there are several story and gameplay problems which hindered the fun. The implementation of the boss fights was unnecessary. I dont have the slightest idea why the developers thought that this would be adding any fun to the game. The second major problem is the story. Most of it doesnt seem reasonable and there are some holes left behind.… Expand

Very good game, but not as good as the original. Boss battles feel forced, artificial, and ultimately pointless. Plot follows a similar version of originals storyline, but all of the intrigue and conspiracy feels shallow. Illuminati are mentioned like twice, but it's never explained how exactly their plan functions.

I'm really not sure why people are scoring this game so high. I've seen everything Human Revolution has to offer in other games--it's just a combination of all those offerings, except none of them are particularly all that well conceived. This would be perfectly acceptable if the story and characters were interesting...they're not. The main character was shipped right out of the "stock character factory", and the story...well...it was intriguing at first but then I completely lost track of why I should give a ****

Let it be known that I'm a big fan of the original Deus Ex, and even played through the lowly Invisible War twice. I'm a sucker for games that allow choice, but this game just didn't grab me. Between the dated overly-gold visuals, long and frequent load times, hit-or-miss voice acting, uninspired weapons and augmentations, zero NPC dynamics, tiny confined areas, and the predictable choices that mostly boil down to "Would you like to shoot your way through the front, or take a vent that's probably around the back behind a box that's highlighted for you?" I couldn't force myself through this game. Surely we've come far enough in 11 years to allow more side entrance options than vents? Human Revolution is certainly Deus Ex for the new generation--but as a veteran PC gamer I feel like it's been dumbed down and streamlined for the masses; sort of like Invisible War only much slower paced and generally more annoying.

Everything of importance is highlighted for you, so you can pretty much just go on autopilot through the environments. The hacking mini-game isn't difficult at all, and it made me wish I could just use a multitool instead and bypass the thing. Pretty much all of the weapons handle easily as soon as you get them, so there's not much incentive to put points into your combat augmentations. Passwords you obtain are slapped on the screen when you hack something, so you don't actually have to read or memorize anything. When you get shot, your health automatically regenerates instead of having to heal separate parts of your body and repair specific injuries that hinder your performance. Ragdoll physics go absolutely bonkers when using the crossbow. I could go on, and on.

Deus Ex was a revolution in gameplay when it was released back in 2000. 11 years later, we get a flashier game that doesn't really do anything new, and in fact goes back a few steps. Those who give this game a 10 really should replay the original Deus Ex and see just how much more atmospheric, expansive, fast-paced, and smarter it is. It's unfortunate that new graphics so often cloud our judgment, but I think that's exactly what's going on here.… Expand

You might feel like I'm giving this a bad score, but 6 is better than average. IN MY OPINION the game has very good stuff going on, but it is kind of ruined with small annoyining "flaws". That being said, I didn't really like the game, but I can see how others might enjoy it a lot. My biggest annoyance is the amount of cutscenes and lenghty discussions. Now I understand that it's an RPG and it's important to make a good setting for the story, but I felt like the game was forcing it to me instead of slowly easing me into it (or maybe I'm just ADHD =P). I liked the story and it made me think for a while, but I didn't like the way it was executed / told. The gameplay wasn't anything special and nothing we haven't seen before, but it was solid. Either way, this game wasn't really my cup of tea, but I have recommended it to my friends who like these kind of games.… Expand

Deus Ex : Human Revolution is the best game I've played for many years.
The story is never boring and you really do have very different and multiple ways to complete each missions.

Though the game had some cool visual graphics and varied gameplay elements, technical problems, like game lag and a bug with the first side quest, as well as the persuasion system, and dialog cut scenes that slowed this game to a crawl, and made this title much less than perfect. I did like the graphics, those even on my almost new system with an upgraded video card, the game lagged and was choppy, making combat that much harder.The augmentation (customising) system was fun, allowing you to upgrade the character on the fly and make hard choices on what physical elements to perfect. The embedded weapons and armor where very cool, but separating the personal visual cloaking from acoustic stealth made it impossible to be truly sneaky.The dialogue cut scenes and persuasion system slowed the game down to an unbearable crawl. Some of the cooler looking weapons where useless, while some others where quite helpful (I won't spoil this for you, you have to figure it out like I did, in the heat of battle). The embedded weapons worked very well, but I did one time use the typhoon accidentally in a public place which cause some civilian causalities and it got the cops mad at me (oops). I think letting the player decide on the mission route and type of force (lethal or non-lethal) to use in order to complete a mission was one of the highlights of this game. The B-ee pilot (I forget her name), who fiys you to diffent loctions within the game, looked like a guy with two very small chest bumps. The story line was far from original, and the ending was so predictable. If you pre-ordered this game as I did, you get a bonus mission, which was too short but had a very cool reward. There was shops in the game where you can buy weapons and upgrades, but these places are hard to find. I found it impossible to sell things to them (game bug?). The game also had a good variety of opponent, both human and robotic, to fight, though towards the end they became repetitious. The computer hacking system was too easy, made even easier by auto hacking items. One thing I really didn't understand was the fact I had break into and shoot up an entire police precinct early in the game, after failing to talk my way in, and the cops just let this act of mass cop murder go. I should have been the most wanted man in history. I can only say the AI in this game leaves much to be desired. I would like to replay the game now that I understand how thing work in it, but the game lag, the bugs, the slowness of the dialog scenes and persuasion system keeps pushing me away from it. I had mixed felling about this game, but knowing about it as I do now, I would have saved my money and steered clear of it, it was too short a story anyway.… Expand

A great game and well worth a play through. The soundtrack is fantastic, the story isn't bad, and the character you play is a dude. I also really liked the art neuveau style clothing and indoor architecture used in the game. There really is a lot to like about this title but I wouldn't put it at the top of my list of favorites.

I enjoyed the stealth aspect, it didn't focus on it, but gave you the option all the way through to go completely undetected, it was very basic though. Pathfinding was a bit a joke as well really... Can't hack this keypad? Well, there's probably a convenient ventilation shaft you can climb through to access this person's office, or police armoury, or high level governmental official's house, or something... Are security set-ups really that lax? The cover system was pretty similar to Mass Effect 2 but it was a lot less forgiving, you really couldn't take many shots before going down (that's not a necessarily a bad thing though). You had to make sure you got your headshot aimings spot on because the enemies didn't give you a second either way to take aim. Unfortunately that made me go for the nicely overpowered cinematic takedown route. You could literally run at someone, tap Q in reach and watch as the protagonist lays a swift roundhouse or chokehold to the badguy, regardless of their armour, rendering him out for the count - the count being, forever, or until a buddy finds them and cracks out the smelling salts - and after realising the last "energy cell" (used for takedowns) runs out, it recharges, there was no need to use my stun gun or tranquilizer rifle for most of the game. The social aug that allowed you to analyze and and influence personality gave a nice touch to the NPC character interactions at key parts of the game. However It really didn't seem like any of this made a big difference to the outcome of the story (if any at all) it was all just a means to an end. If you couldn't get someone to do something for you, you'd go ninja vent crawling and cinematic take-downing until you did it yourself. Which to be fair, made you feel like a bad-ass anyway!

I've probably focused on the bad aspects too much, the game is far from bad, my memories of Deus Ex have just lead me to want the perfect game from the series! This is definitely a worthwhile addition anyway!… Expand

The graphics are definitely not top of the range, the K.I. isn't super clever and most of the game inventions are stolen from other games. From my point of view: Totally overrated and another fast food game.

I have played both Deus Ex 1 and Deus Ex: HR, but I won't compare them to each other as much.
Deus Ex: HR has amazing gameplay. The "choice" part is no gimmick, your actions really affect the future. The RPG augmentation/ gun upgrade system is very flexible to your very own play style; you can sneak around or shoot everyone, or anything in between. The music is OK, but it's too ambient and needs to be more of a part of the game. I'm not judging much for graphics, but they're pretty good at some parts, and poor at other parts.
What is really lacking, though, in Deus Ex: HR is the story. The story felt too weak and there isn't much motivation for what you are doing. IMO, the beginning should have really been in the middle. The characters, however, have pretty fleshed out personalities.… Expand

The fact that you have to grind in this game to get levels may be annoying, but having more than one way to get that experience and having those methods tied into the feel of the game saved it from what could have been a bad mechanic. I really think it should have had a reset button for your skills though, going around with a particular skill set and then figuring out that none of them will help where you're at is a bit annoying at times, but those times are scarce enough not to matter too much. The AI isn't all that bright but you do have to think in combat situations as you die quickly if you botch it up. I admired the appearance of the game, despite what others may think I thought it adhered to the feel of the game rather well.… Expand

Deus Ex is a great game. Great story, fun weapons and fairly open game play. Couple of reasons it is not 10 game. There is a gimmicky promotion of vent living for stealth and defeating enemies. Enemies are vent shy, never pursuing you into them, and never figuring out to throw a grenade in. Also, there are unusual and frustrating boss battles that seem as much pulled from an arcade action game rather than a tactical game.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I bought the game via Steam and played it through to completion. I was very entertained and intrigued by the storyline, and the gameplay was fun and engaging.

The character customization felt impactful. I did not feel that I was dumping my points into meaningless categories. I enjoyed the combat aspects of the game...but I was happier with the idea that I had the OPTION to fight or find an alternate way of handling a scenario.

I didn't feel like the game was holding my hand through the exploration of maps or finding specific objectives. The game does have map waypoints and helpful tools, but there isn't a shiny line guiding me in a certain direction, which is usually because there are multiple ways to get to a given objective. This game is a reminder that it can be fun to figure things out.

I would have liked to have more interaction with the world. There are many buildings, doors, windows, things lying around, etc., that you cannot do anything with. They are simply part of the game's "sift through things to find what you need". If you need it, you can interact with it.

The game felt to be more rewarding if you followed a path that involved sneaking & hacking. Hard charging into an area with guns blazing proves to be effective, and sometimes very fun...but it's over quick. Taking your time, mapping out in your mind what to and where to gohide, and planning a strategy all seem to be what the developers had in mind.

I played on the easiest difficulty (because I want the story, I don't care about how many bullets it takes to kill a bad guy). I don't believe playing on EZ mode detracted anythiing from my experience. The puzzles were still fun. The combat still made me think about my next move.

This game is worth the time, and worth the money. I was happy with how long the game lasted, although I admit that the game would be a significantly shorter experience if I went around killing everyone.

Although I haven't started a second playthrough, I would agree that there is absolutely enough of a game here to give the game a second playthrough. There are many missions with different paths, and I was left many times wondering what would have happened if I went with a different method.

Suggestions for developers:

Playing "non lethal" really restricts the ability to modify weapons, as there isn't a lot of inventory space to carry much of both my lethal and non lethal weapons around. I love modifyingtinkering with weapons so I'd try to carry them around just in case I came across some weapon mods...because the non lethal options didn't permit many upgrades.

There is an ability to store my gear in a central place...but I did not like how disorganized it was. I didn't want to simply drop items on the ground and come back later. I wanted gun racks, drawers that I could put things in, etc.

This game could have done without the boss battles. In a sense, I felt punished for my play style. In a game where I am given the option to resolve scenarios in so many different ways...I am trapped into a trigger-happy-hope-you-are-good-at-shooters-even-though-this-game-really-isn't-a-shooter type thing. I felt very removed from the experience in these areas, even though the story line was linked to the encounter.… Expand

I enjoyed it a great deal and was able to immerse myself in the cyberpunk world despite not having played the previous games. What I enjoyed the most was that the game encourages you to seek alternative paths and rely on stealth. However the game lacks a bit of character development as far as I'm concerned. Most of the NPC's are bland while some feel underdeveloped, like there was no time to finish and record more dialogue. What I would have loved to see is meeting your friends or colegues at your apartament to enjoy some R&R, just to ease the transitions between missions a little. Overall I was satisfied with this title. I will be purchasing the dlc that came out recently as soon as it's less than 10 euros.… Expand

This game is a great way to lose about 40-60 hours of your life. It pulls you in and crafts a world that simply begs for exploration. I fear it has limited replay ability, but that doesn't detract from the first or second run-through.

I really enjoyed this game. The variation of weapons and side quests. Running from point a to point b got a little irritating for quests but with an amazing soundtrack and a gripping story line I had a hard time putting it down. I found the last boss fight to be far too easy compared to the others, but otherwise overall challenging (depending on the difficulty setting you choose.) I am also happy you can pass through this whole game without killing anyone (except the bosses of course.)

Overall a game I will be replaying soon enough!… Expand

Spent 27 hours on this game - that including most side missions done. The story is exciting and takes many surprising turns, and overall the gameplay is also very impressive and smooth. However some of the boss battles were a bit frustrating compared to the rest of the game, although they obviously only play a minor role compared to the rest of the game. Otherwise the game is very "pre-determined", in that it's not open world or anything. You sometimes get a few choices, but in the end, there seems to be only a hand full of outcomes.
All in all the game is great and definitely worth it.… Expand

Ever game has a color about it. Saints row is purple, Brink is light blue, Deus Ex is yellow. Also its a very unique shooter greatly using cover, stealth, hacking, and overall strategy. Or you can set it to easy mode and just play it like a more standard game which I ended up doing, cuz I was really bad at it lol 8/10

This is a phenomenal game. The only reason I'm not giving it a 10 is that I liked the original Deus Ex a bit more. But whether you've ever played the first game or not, you are not in for a disappointment with this game. The story is very well written, almost as good as the original. The gameplay, intertwining FPS and RPG, is done very well. I'm usually not a fan of FPS games, there's only been a small handful that I thought were worth playing for more than an hour or two, but this FPS/RPG hybrid is among the best games I've ever played.… Expand

Definitely a worthy game in the Deus Ex line unlike the nightmare of IW. Great story, interesting characters, a unique art design, and q phenomenal soundtrack really make it an experience. However, boss fights can be a pain with certain augmentations.

Having played Dues Ex (1) I found it to be one of the best, original FPS with RPG elements I'd ever experienced. Dues Ex (2) was a collosal let down. Why?... it was exactly the same just not half as good. Dues Ex Human Revolutions (3) is exactly the same, but MUCH better than before. FOR - In brief, took everything that made the 1st Dues Ex great and did it better. Great to look at
Smooth to play
Very effectively gives the appearance of being non-linear

AGAINST -

The plot feels a little 'seen it, done it'.
Boss fights are a little boring.
The game is perhaps an hour or two shorter than you'd like.
Add-on packs are unnecessary (they add probably 20-45 minutes depending on how you play) and add nothing of any real consequence.

My biggest thumbs up? - It's the best FPS/RPG since Dues Ex (1) and thats mighty complimentary.

My Biggest thumbs down? - The ending... without going into details and spoiling it for you. There are multiple endings and how you play the game does not affect these in the slightest.

To put in another way, you can play game all guns blazing, or be a stealthy as a ninja, this (aside from steam rewards) will not affect the outcome one way or the other, you still get to choose your ending with no limitations. This rather sadly brings the non-linear illusion crashing with a thud. The endings themselves are also rather poor. Without spoiling it, if you've sat through a metal gear solid 'cut scene' where they explain the plot, then you have a pretty good idea how this game will end.

In conclusion - A great game which ultimately will leave you a little deflated, but it's worth it.… Expand

Never played the original, so had no pre-conceived idea about what to expect. But, it was marketed to me as having all the elements of a game I would enjoy: character-driven sci-fi conspiracy story with tons of action, important choices to make, and stealth gameplay. For me, it did what it said on the tin. Music, voice-acting and the graphics were truly awesome. I suppose the reason I can't give it full marks is because I was kind of hoping for more. The legendary boss battles for me, weren't such a pain as my character was tooled up for a fire-fight, but I can see why they weren't that popular. Currently this my game of the year. Can we have another one soon please?… Expand

A good game and one that definitely deserves to be played and beaten thoroughly, the new Deus Ex probably would have been a Game of the Year contender during any other year. It's got great gunplay, great stealth elements, and an average-to-good story to play through. Most of all, it's just a fun game but that doesn't mean there aren't problems with it. The biggest problem I had was with the characters, especially the main character, Adam Jenson. Jenson just sounds so bored throughout the entire game and it's not until the big reveal at the end where he actually sounds like he's invested in what's going on. I just would have preferred if he didn't sound uninterested in what was going on half the time. The boss battles are pretty awful, but those have been documented. They also tried to make it an open world sandbox by giving you a bunch of side missions to play but it seems like they lost interest in that after the first level. I would say about 80% of the side missions occur in the first sandbox area of the game, which is disappointing when there are just so many different locations in the game where they could have added more of these side missions to play through. However none of this makes it a bad game. Just not a game that is as good or better than other FPS games that came out in 2011, with Skyrim being the most immediate comparison. However I hope people will buy this when they have gotten done with Skyrim or something similar. It's still a great game to play.… Expand

This is a fun and challenging game, I will agree that PC gaming has been held back by the weaker console ports. The game has A LOT of style, but the animations, graphics, lighting, and more is weak. I used a graphics mod to fix this. I liked this game but I never played the first. I found the stealth fun and my favorite over the shooting. This is a fun game but has its flaws.

I was skeptical that Human Revolution would live up to original but it did. This game has a ton of atmosphere. Whether you are hopping between the cramped rooftops of lower Hengsha or crawling through a sewage drain in Detroit, this game always feels like a living breathing world. All aided greatly by an interesting aesthetic and an incredible soundtrack (as well as a spot on Alex Jones parody on the in game radio). The gameplay is well executed and varied, always allowing you multiple ways to tackle any area ranging from running in guns blazing to moving through vents undetected to hacking a robot and letting it mow down the enemies for you. The first couple bosses are quite challenging especially as I was doing a pacifist playthrough, they reminded me of boss fights of old where I actually had to try more than once to beat it. Too bad the rest of the game is fairly easy, even on the hardest mode. Finally the storyline is compelling and satisfying, a morally ambiguous conspiracy ridden tale which will throw most people for at least a few loops (Unless you frequent TV Tropes) and leads to some interesting choices at the end.… Expand

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is Deus Ex for the next generation. The plot, main character, music and gameplay are so similar that veterans will feel at home and newbies will awe at the game's excellence.

I purchased this game when released, and overall, my experience with the game has been by and large, a positive experience. The graphics are impressive, and I did not experience any significant bugs. The action is for the most part flows at a fairly quick clip, but the "hacking" of terminals becomes a rather mundane task. The story lines are not bad, but are predictable and somewhat humorous at times. One of the very first things I did notice when firing up the game for the first time was the lifelessness. Cars do not move, and has the traffic flow of North Korea - none at all. People aimlessly walk around, and the whole vibe of the cities seem, well, lifeless. Enemies are similar throughout, and while challenging at times, the mechanics are the same. Hide behind this, shoot that. Not that is a negative, but adding that to the lifelessness makes the experience, well, weird. Still, I would recommend this game, but not at the price I purchased it for.… Expand

A good game overall. One of the biggest downfalls, as many players have pointed out, are the lack of challenge in the boss fights. Once you figure out the "shortcuts", the boss fights are insultingly easy. The plot also gets a bit convoluted as you progress. Other than that, it has generally solid gameplay. Most weapons can be upgraded, you can install Augmentations to enhance your abilities, and you have an XP system, where you acquire a Praxis kit for each time you level up to select said Augmentations. Stealth is an optional approach, as are non-lethal means of neutralizing bad guys. Using cover in your combat environment is a must - going Rambo will get you killed quickly. There are plenty of side quests to take on throughout the game as well. I have not played the first two Deus Ex games though, so I'm not in a position to compare it to earlier games in the series. Regardless, gamers should try this one out if they haven't already.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. From normal human to god kind, this game will lead you in the middle story of the human revolution against the technology, with gorgeous graphic locations and musics, animated graphic videos that will help to feel part of the story, increase the skills of your body parts with the augmentation, and if you buy the first 2 episodes are they are cool too.… Expand

Deus Ex: Human Revolution has to be one of, if not my favourite game of all time. Touching on the increasingly more and more relevant subject of augmentation and the increase of implants/medical procedures to give people back their abilities otherwise lost or even to enhance them, we get to experience the human revolution for ourselves. The story is very immersive, throwing you back and forth, never knowing which side to take or even believe we truly feel lost and even better that when an objective has been completed, that we are picking up secret information we weren't supposed to know. Having hit just over 20 hours on my first play through, there is more than enough story to keep you going for a fair while. What made the game a hit with me though was how it made me feel, at times I agreed and loved augmentation, the idea of enhancing lives, giving back what we could/have lost and generally moving forward as a race, but other times afraid, HR shown us how humanity could further use its own powers against itself, it more and more violent ways to keep humanity down and citizens under control and these different arguments were great because they caused a great moral conflict, a feeling not many games give you. Other little points made this game great to, the ability again to chose your augments meant the game was more personal, you chose whatever fitted you which ultimately meant a different experience between all players which is always good. The cover system made fighting more intense while retaining good stealth game play, which is just good fun.Scenery was gorgeous, futuristic WIFI smart cities bustling with life and tech, which doesn't seem to SCI FI but rather close, when you think about it all the tech used around the places is just a mere advancement of what we already have, however a lot of the cities had slum areas which was a great reminder of how humanity if splitting itself apart, the rich and the poor, those going forward and those being left behind and its the little things like this which help to give this game a great atmosphere. The bosses however... yes they were quite annoying, with no ability of using stealth, or augments, they ruined the experience, however if you run in head first, they aren't that hard just more of a chore, but if we put that aside, it really isn't that bad a part of the game. Quests were a plenty and gave us a good insight to the lives of people, how augments had changed them, but also how life is harder, but again not unbelievable, just an extension of the lives some people actually lead, drug and gang culture etc. The greatest point for me was the ending... never have I sat there pondering the choice of ending, thinking which should I do, but this game got me thinking and I generally found my choice hard, but also very rewarding with what I got out of it. Not only a great video to end the game, but a weird feeling inside reminding me that one day humanity will hit this breaking point. The feelings I got though when playing this, when finishing it was what made this game for me. I was throw about, not knowing who to trust, always feeling lost - but most of all the moral conflict was great. Not knowing whether to agree or disagree with what humanity is is doing to itself. If you want to be immersed and have an amazing story told you will not regret this purchase, definitely an amazing game.… Expand

I did not finish this game as I'm not into stealth. That being said, the 8 hours I invested were thouroughly enjoyable and the games merrits were certainly appreciated. The gameplay was crisp, the visuals gave a great level of interest and painted the futuristic city well. The upgrade system was very rewarding and the story was interesting. Not my cup of tea but highly recomended to those who enjoy the genre. 8.5… Expand

Deus Ex: Human Revolution does not quite match up to the original Deus Ex, but that fact does not make this prequel a bad game. The story is entertaining enough to get the player through the game, although it is not spectacular. The settings are varied enough to keep the player interested. The quests offer some variety thanks to the dynamic gameplay. The player often has choices as to how he/she wants to complete an objective. Stealth, pacifism, combat-- all ways the player can play through. The story is slightly affected by character choices, although only the end is really changed. at the end of the day, this game is part of the Deus Ex series. As such, the game is an entertaining role-playing shooter. I definitely recommend this game.… Expand

Having looked at the ridiculous, perfect 10 scores the Eidos and Square employees have been giving this rather mediocre game, I've decided to try and balance out the bias a bit (by awarding a nice fat zero to this console abomination)...

I was a massive fan if the first game and hoped the sequel would live up to it: unfortunately it's just not in the same league. It is a decent game in its own right and will keep you amused for a play through, but it just never quite delivers that playing pleasure that kept me replaying the original. Firstly, the storyline, while OK, doesn't have the twists and turns of the original and feels contrived and limp. But most disappointing is the gameplay.
The most innovative aspect to the first game was the sheer scope to complete levels in multiple ways. The levels were so big and intricate you really felt part of a real world where you had the choices. On top of this the augmentations made a huge difference in terms of how you could complete levels and dictated the kind of player you wanted to be. In this sequel it feels much more rushed and less complete. The levels are populated by very few characters who do more than give you the stock, non-interactive answers, and as soon as you get off the beaten track instead of finding new interesting puzzles and bonuses, you find doors you can't enter and routes you can't explore. On top of this the augmentations just don't really change the gameplay much. In the original I replayed the game several times choosing different augmentations and thereby having a very different experience each time. This kept the game fresh and exciting. In this game the aug's don't really alter how you play, other than making it a bit easier here and there, and in the case of the typhoon system making it too easy really. There also isn't the noticeable difference as you upgrade. In the original game the sniper rifle was pretty useless as a novice; by the time you were an expert with a couple of weapon mod's added it became incredibly powerful. In this sequel the weapons are quite good whatever level you are on, but never particularly great even when you are an expert.
The sequel does have some new and interesting ideas. The conversation analysis aug that allows you to work out the best responses to give , and the way you can move between cover. But these cannot hide the fact that most of what is here is simply a rehash of the original, and in most cases a rehash that falls below the level already achieved. Add to this some levels that take an awful long time to load I can't give this more than a 6 out of 10.… Expand

A very good game with some potential apart from the original Deus Ex. I like the new mixed hybrid gameplay, the soundtrack and the story plot. But the biggest drawbacks of the game: the graphics are on par with any recent Call of Duty game despite the high system requirements, the ending was decent, the boss fights were not challenging enough, the music is not in HD quality and the video cinematics are not in HD. Its only DLC, the Missing Link, should have been free to download as a expansion patch.… Expand

Only just picked this up now since I built a new rig. Good game with decent graphics and sound. The best part is the addictive gameplay imho. Graphically the models fall short of the quality you find in Mass Effect 3 for example but they are convincing and quite good non-the-less. The game is going for peanuts now on any platforms I've noticed - absolutely worth picking up imo.

A great game which does the original justice. The plot is relatively strong, although could be stronger. The gunplay and stealth 'feel' like you would want them to. The hardest difficulty is balanced perfectly. The graphics can simply be described as 'acceptable' - they don't detract from the gameplay, but you can't help at times but to wish it was running on a better engine; and there are negatives - The decision system is used rarely, and when it is, it feels like your choices make little impact - then when it comes to making the 'end game choice', you don't get to see how it plays out, you don't even get a cutscene. The praxis system make it too easy to level everything if you save all your cash and just buy praxis points, and your choices in how to specialise don't really feel like they have a huge impact on how you will end up playing the game. Would have also been nice to have more side missions available to you rather than the handful there are, with only a couple of those feeling relevant. Normally I have a lot to write, but in this instance I don't - It's a good game and I thoroughly enjoyed it.… Expand

The atmosphere is incredible, as are the locales, but there are just too many issues with the game to give it praise. The character animations (and the occasional voice-over) are very poor, which account for a quite a lot of the interactions in the game. When they take you out of the immersion, it effects everything else.

It almost feels as though the game was made for stealth, and stealth only. Firefights are extremely clunky, and once you engage in one, you might as well cross your fingers and hope you saved recently.

I also felt the progression was very linear, for what initially appears to be a sandbox style game. At the 20 hour mark, I simply gave up and sold the game. Being a new parent, my nights are limited to only a couple of hours to myself, so after eating up 2 solid weeks of personal time, I can safely say I got my money's worth. I recommend this to anyone who is a HUGE fan of stealth based games, but if you're looking for action, steer clear.… Expand

I climbed through an f-ton of vents and shafts. I ran around invisible a lot. Hell, I didn't even need a real gun except for the out of place boss fights. Interesting, but graphically dated game. It's not open world-e, and the open world-esque parts just make you feel claustrophobic. The voice of Sarif sounds familiar.

If you like "rpgs" that tell a good story then this game delivers. The plot and the environment were very good. Graphics, sound and gameplay were decent. I have to admit at the beginning this game seemed WAY too easy. The main flaws in this game are the ease at which you can avoid the enemy by hiding behind a box (even though the guy is right beside you) and the combat (it's too easy to run and hide without having the enemy chase you).

However as you progress further and further the story and missions tend to make up for a lot of the easy combat. This game is NOT a perfect 10 and although some of the negative reviews have valid points this game doesn't deserve a negative score either. I think a lot of people got so hyped up at seeing the trailers that they might have been expecting a little too much out of this game..… Expand

Excellent in almost every possible way. Deus Ex: Human Revolution provides people who are not very big fans of open world settings with a comfortable gameplay style that isn't too linear or too open ended. It offers many different choices to each possible scenario, may it be combat, stealth, or even talking your way through at specific points. DE: HR is a perfect example of GOOD console porting with its numerous and lovely DirectX11 bells and whistles. It will barely strain your PC, but still possess some lovely visuals. The characters do look rubbery and sometimes undetailed, but the environments are quite often stellar looking. All this eye candy runs at max framerate for me! But graphics alone don't make a game. The story, characters, and setting are all quite immersive. There is conspiracy and corruption abound within the dystopian future of DE: HR, and it provides us with emotionally powerful moral and philisophical implications! A highly reccomended game!!… Expand

It's lucky I got this game through my video card purchase and thoroughly enjoyed it for 60 hours with two play through. I am new to Deus Ex franchise and immediately got hooked in first couple of hours. The presentation and dialogs are handled similar to mass effect which I liked very much. However, the main strength of this game is the game mechanics. It's unusual for a game that combines so many aspects together. there are so many paths in each level to take, you can sneak past your enemies, or you could silently take down each enemy and hide their bodies, or you could grab a machine gun to fight your way through and if you increase your hack abilities, it will open even more ways to approach your goal. It's just so much fun to try each way out . I recommend it to any general PC gamer and I also bought the original deus ex at direct2drive. hope it will be as good.… Expand

An almost perfect game, and by any means the best stealth shooter on the PC since Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (if you decide to play it that way). So, where's the hook? Let's start with what's great. The writing, the voice acting, the visual style, the level design, the atmosphere, the gameplay, the difficulty. They all are. For all those reasons it's one of those games you install and play and finish, and then you suddenly realize that it's sunday night and you've played through the entire weekend. It grips you. Now for the downsides. The stealth mechanics could be a little more refined than they are, and the few boss fights are horribly unbalanced towards some character builds. But that's all. I wish I could play it again for the first time.… Expand

Great game, loved the storyline. Not the greatest game of all time, but certainly worth my 50 bucks.

If you want a good, sci-fi game that flows well but is challenging enough to keep you interested, this one's for you. But be warned, a few fights in the game can be very hard if you're ill equipped, you need to think outside the box sometimes to win even on normal difficulty.

Very good and engaging game. I am not into deep RPG titles and actually did not like the earlier two titles in this series. I played as mostly combat but did lots of hacking to get experience and money (kind of like Bioshock) and that was a very satisfying experience to me. The combat is well done and stealth is a great way to save ammo which is in limited supply early in the game but is plentiful later.

What I did not find amusing are somewhat dated graphics look, occasional freezes and in game map and inventory controls. Also, the way story was told was kind of boring. A lot of emphasis on reading instead of telling it in more indirect ways like Bioshock did (through background voices and videos). The dialogs are also too long for what they worth - they are not changing the game flow enough to justify time they take. The endings are also dissapointing. In fact, there was no reason to have multiple as they basically the same.

With all said, It is still one of the best few titles of 2011 and is a very engaging and fun game. If you liked Bioschock or Escape from Butcher Bay then it should be on your list.… Expand

It would have been a 9 if the boss fights were not so forced and difficult. I needed to use meta-game knowledge to beat Beret and looking for it forced it forced me to learn spoilers I didn't want to see.

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. PC gamers must get used to this fact: many of the big studio releases for their (and my) favoured medium are being principally developed on consoles, with console gamers in mind. Most of the attacks on this game acknowledge that fact, but resent it. There is a perception that a PC game should mean complexity and depth, whereas a console game should be accessible and shallow. Whatever the truth of these perceptions, Deus Ex: Human Revolutions is a game which has been developed for a console which stands up happily on the PC and is one of the more enjoyable PC games of this year. It is billed as an RPG-shooter. The RPG elements are located as sensibly as any leveling up system can possibly be inside the story. Jensen, following his operation, has all his augmentations intact, but he's brought out of recovery early. His body and nervous system aren't used to their newfound, mechanically-enhanced talents. Therefore, he needs Praxis software - earned through the accumulation of experience, i.e. use of his new body, to unlock the higher level abilities. Well, it's a stretch, but it's a brave attempt by the game's writers to impose a story on the notion of levelling up, something which RPG enthusiasts have taken for granted since the first tentative forays of pen-and-paper, kitchen table games onto the home computer in the eighties. Personally, I approve. Speaking of the difference between pen-and-paper, kitchen table RPGs and their electronic successors, DE:HR offers the player a decent amount of choice for the type of game it is. A pen-and-paper session over pizzas and beer is limited only by the rules of the game and the tolerance of one's fellow gamers. Not so on a computer game. All choices must be limited by necessity. The story of DE:HR implies that the action happens within the space of a few days; by necessity, it is tightly plotted. But within that, there are multiple ways to execute each mission. There are different physical routes to each objective. There are a good range of weapons to support a given player style and a sensible, intuitive inventory system. There are approaches ranging from a Terminator-style shoot-out in a Detroit nick, through persuading your way in, to sneaking in undetected. Yes, of course real people don't really patrol like DE:HR's guards do, but we are somewhat limited by the technology available to us in 2012 and no game has yet achieved a perfect patrolman. DE:HR's guards move naturally enough to keep up the illusion of reality, and even chat to each other on occasion.

it No 21st-century shooter would be complete without a cover mechanic, but it works nicely within the confines of the game. The game awards points for merciful take-downs over straightforward kills; and awards end-of-level points for remaining undetected, in order to encourage different styles of play. On the topic of rewarding, the dialogue system invites comparisons with Bioware's and tops it without question. The dialogue options accurately foreshadow both the temperament and content of Jensen's potential answers, unlike Bioware's wretched wheel. Rather than a straight choice between flippant, aggressive and passive, one must watch the tone and personality of the NPC to get the best out of the conversation. With the right augmentation, one can release pheromones to increase diaglogue options. It's just a shame that more conversations don't follow this path: a goodly number are, in essence, cuscenes, which is somewhat frustrating, given the potential shown in the interactive dialogues.

Of course, it's not all roses. Entertaining as the manual takedown animations are, they don't always gel with the preceding action and the dissonance can grate. There are four mandatory boss-fights in the game, which are an unwelcome encumbrance (and a nod to DE:HR's console roots!) and force even the sneakiest of players to play, temporarily, in an aggressive style (vive le Typhoon). Also unwieldy, in a narrative sense, are the sidequests: enjoyable as they are, they do feel forcibly levered into the time-conscious plot. Finally, the corporate-espionage-with-a-moral-dimension plot all takes a turn for the Dan Brown towards the end, invoking ancient conspiracies and giant machines we've all seen a hundred times in other games, books and films, which is something of a let down. The ending montages, particularly, are annoyingly bland and a good deal of loose ends are not tied up (DLC, anyone?)

But on the whole, DE:HR is a good game. The plot is on a par with any B-movie or airport thriller novel; the action's decent; there is enough freedom of choice to keep most RPG fans satisfied (if one recognises that this is not trying to be D&D on your PC); the dialogue system is a real hit; and the game has a sense of humour (Robocop fans will encounter a policeman named Murphy without a sense of dramatic irony; Megadeth fans a certain hangar...). Give it a go.… Expand

A slightly worse game than deus ex. Which is one of the best games ever made. It improves a LOT of smaller things, adds a better atmosphere and music, better core mechanics. And a slightly smaller world and a slightly less fantastic story - With a lot of options of approach, but still less than the original.

All of this makes it a 10/10. Just a lesser 10/10 than deus ex. If they manage to improve the options and world, as well as the story in the next game. It might just overtake the original deus ex. They are absolutely on the right path - and the game series is in more capable and promising hands than the original developers. Why? - The original creators also made invisible war. That's why.… Expand

First game I have played in years that I can't put down. It's Deus Ex 1 all over again. All the dissenters on here can stick to playing CoD or some other arcade shooter as they seem to just not get this game. It's everything good about Deus Ex made better, including combat, stealth, and most importantly your choices really do feel like they make an impact on the story. My only complaints:
1. Environments are way too static. It's 2011 and desk items aren't getting thrown around in a firefight? If I shoot a stack of paper it gets a bullet hole? The coffee cup is still on the table after a grenade went off? The environments the designers made are very well done, and highly explorable, but seriously, there should be more interaction. Cracks on the walls that you can blow up? Really? Is this Zelda or something?

2. No battery recharge robots...I like how your augs don't last very long in this one, as well as the fact that its hard to take down more than 1 or 2 guys with the instant kill function. However a few more recharge stations here or there would make it more fun.

3. Realistic mode is a bit unbalanced. I always played Deus Ex on Realistic. I liked how you and the enemies had the same health. This is not the case in HR; it still takes 5,7 sometimes 10 body shots to kill a guy. Granted a headshot is an instant kill, If I plug a guy in the chest, that should take him down too. I'm sure this could be fixed in a mod.

Everything else in the game is perfect!… Expand