Forgot to mention that I thought the pacing of the delivery was superb and I should probably clarify that my dislikes are just that, dislikes. The only thing I’d say was a harsh flaw was the first boss battle.

I actually finished it last night, but I’ll be sure to not mention any spoilers.

I think I’ll just divide my list into likes and dislikes:

LIKES:
1. Gunplay was very enjoyable for me
2. Excellent atmosphere.
3. Interesting and compelling NPC’s.
4. Some particularly badass moments I had during play.
5. The first time you enter Jensen’s apartment. You get the whole blade-runner-esque feel and you learn a lot about Jensen just by exploring it. One of the most memorable video game moments I’ve had recently.

DISKLIKES:
1. Game length felt artificially padded by stealth.

I’ve been seeing 20+ hour playtimes mentioned around the web and my own playthrough clocked 22 hours. However, I spent a large portion of that time reading emails, hacking systems, and scavenging ammo that I ended up never needing.

2. Lack of 10 mm ammo.

Pet peeve really. The pistol in the original deus ex was my go to weapon and I’m glad to see it’s back in all it’s badass glory. However, the ammo becomes very scarce after the first part of the game while I was loaded down with combat rifle and smg rounds. It was almost too awesome to use.

3. Writing.

Now I’ll say that the story is fairly good, but I probably wouldn’t call it great. There were a moments were I felt that they handed some npc’s the idiot ball, though they weren’t too severe (I may be mistaken that assumption though since I haven’t delved into the wiki yet). I’ll mention these in a follow up article if you make one.

4. Stealth is too strongly encouraged and too easy thanks to stealth + instant melee kills in my opinion.

5. The game pushes you towards the non-violent option and rewards you for it.

This one really got under my skin. In the original deus ex, I felt like I was putting myself at risk whenever I had to do something non-violent. You either had to get close to the target and zap him with the stun rod, or you had to tranquilize him and hope he didn’t make it to an alarm or alert his buddy, or shoot you for that matter. But I went with the non-violent option frequently because that’s what I felt JC would have done.

In HR, you get a tranq gun that doesn’t alert enemies and is silenced AND is scoped. You get a taser that is an instant disable and ranged. Energy recharges in HR, so you can spam cloak even more. You get melee takedowns that can be upgraded to dispatch two enemies at once. And did I mention you get extra xp for non-violently neutralizing enemies?

6. The boss battles.

Particularly that these make true pacifist runs impossible and the first one blindsides you like a freight train (thank god I had been stock-piling grenades)

7. The protagonist.

Both me and my brother were talking yesterday about the game, and we both agreed that JC Denton should much more character development during his game than Jenson did. I think it’s mainly becaused they tried to make him more of a blank slate so that players could do what they wanted, but in the end, it just made him seem one-dimensional. Then again, this may just have been the way I played JC in my games, but I felt like he was a much more compelling character than Jensen.

@ Jakob:

I got the social enhancer, and it seems to open new dialog paths sometimes. Very cool.

@ Morghan:

It is definitely worth a rental. The PC version is great – it has none of the usual console annoyances. All the screens are properly designed with mouse and keyboard in mind.

@ MrPete:

Well, there are three non-lethal weapons I have discovered so far.

The Stun Gun is a taser like pistol with a very short range. A single shot takes the opponent out immediately. They get shocked and fall down where they stand.

The Tranq Gun is a scope weapon with a long range. The darts have a delayed effect so you need to shoot from a distance and from behind cover. Once you hit, the opponent will become alerted, but usually does not raise alarm – he just goes to the search patrol routine, and collapses after 3-4 seconds.

The PEP (or whatever it’s called) is a shotgun type weapon that can stun several opponents with one shot. It is not very discrete and has short range, but it does allow you to take out an entire guard outpost in one shot if you are lucky.

Heck, with this review and the almost-fanatic-babble of a friend (it’s so great and my console is so much better than a PC) I now actually consider taking a copy.
The stun gun (the wrist dart, no?) in the first part wasn’t totally useless. Sure, enemies did run around some time screaming and alerting all manner of unfriendly attention but only if you hit somewhere else than the head.
Sure, that was kinda hard on distances more than “tap on the shoulder and run” without pistol-skill close to max but it either made for a nice distraction or really opened a door…

Still considering it. I usually wait until used copies start showing up before I buy a game. This, however, is one of the three games I’ve seen that I’ll likely buy new without it being put in the red box first. I think I’ll rent it sometime next week and see if I’ll be putting out $60 for it or waiting until I can pick it up for $20.

@ Luke Maciak:
I suspect that the Sanders conversation is infalible, but I have no proof off this. But, you should get it any way, since it allows you to press for more information, sidestep different combat sections or get more quest rewards.

But, all the social enhancer does is saying: “This guy reacts such and such to this response”. You still have to be read them correctly in order to choose the correct response. Also, the big conversations are randomized so you cant quick load/save your way through them ;)

@ Jakob:

I loved the Sanders conversation. I did not have the social augment so I did it by simply observing his reactions. That was enough for me to be able to nail it. I think this just shows the quality of writing in this game. :)

@ copperfish:
Sure, but remember it was basically ineffectivein the orignal. Shot them with a tranq arrow and the enemies would run around screaming. The Stun Gun is way more effective, capable of one shotting the toughest normal enemies (at least on normal). Combined with it is considered non lethal, it makes sense to limit it.

I really enjoyed the game. I played the original game a week before Human Revolution and it is clear that Human Revolution took a lot of hints from it. There are several approaches to an objective. Shoot, sneak or find a ventilation shaft. Even if you sneak, there are several paths.

The regenerating health system is also pretty neat. It does take quite a while for it to set in and when it does, it builds health slowly. So you cant sit in a corner for a few seconds.

But the thing is the social puzzle. Like the one with Sanders in the very beginning or the desk sergeant at the police station. Where you have an actual conversation with people and the responses are not the typical good and evil, but very varied. If you haven’t, I wholly recommend you get the social enhancer augmentation, it is well worth it.

Bu the boss battles are badly designed, not question about it.

@ Dr. Azrael Tod:

Point taken – I didn’t think about that.

Although some of the memes have quite a pedigree. So you can get into a situation in which you have a video game that references an internet fad, which references an anime series which referenced a video game and etc… It’s like memeception. :P

@ copperfish:

Also, I noticed that for Stealth-based characters it is actually better to invest in hacking, strength and jumping than into cloak and see-through-walls enhancements. I spent my praxis points on cloaking field, and immediately realized that I can effectively sneak without it. On the other hand, hacking, lifting heavy objects and the punching through the walls allowed me to open up new stealth approach paths. So go figure.

Only issue is you build offensive combat skills and not only a hack/stealth character mainly for the boss fights. Other than that it really does feel like the original and that’s a good thing.

Only thing that feels off is the stun gun ammo (there’s not much of it) – I really remember it being pretty much limitless in the first game, but then I last played it ages ago.