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Deus Ex: Human Revolution Review

Good:

Can do weird stuff in terms of gameplay

Presents decently grey moral dilemmas every now and then

Dope soundtrack

Bad:

Game took longer than I thought

Gameplay is slow paced and there is just straight up too much of it

Mediocre story

Garbage bosses

Overall : C+

I only started playing this game because I started to listen to the soundtrack. I loved it and thought surely the game that inspires such dope tunes has to be better than the mediocre reviews that I remember reading about it. I was more or less wrong.

The problem is just the gameplay isn't very stimulating. Its very basic stealth mechanics. Though the levels are decently non-linear. Still its just enter new room->take out or avoid guards->do quest thing->repeat. For a 30 hour (took me considerably longer) game that just isn't enough complexity and gets incredibly old very quickly. Especially since its story is not that good

The enemies are very basic. They just walk around and then shoot you. Later they can sometimes go invisible. That's really it. I think this is probably a good reason why the game gets old so fast. You are literally fighting the same retards the entire game. Sure you get a few extra tricks to deal with them but its still the same stuff and really boring. Its basically like Metal Gear Solid 1-3 except less linear. The less linearity actually kind of hurts the game. Because it just makes everything take way longer. They present these sprawling levels so you have many ways to complete the mission, but in the end the cost of these more complex levels is just the gameplay taking far longer. MGS2 on the other hand is a way shorter game, less than half the time. It focuses more on a zany story with weird bosses and characters. The enemies are similarly simple though. In terms of actual combat you aren't really playing it that much. The stealth aspect is considerably easier in MGS which I think helps it. In MGS you rush through levels and get to the fun part which is the crazy story. MGS's top down perspective really helps as well.

Deus Ex on the other hand tries really hard to make more complex gameplay. It does so a bit but the problem is the game just lasts so fucking long. I enjoyed the first few levels you can do decently weird stuff like knock people out and then stick them in vents but before even half way through it was a chore to play. Each section would take awhile and the story wasn't interesting at all until maybe the end.

So what's the story? Well in summary your scientist GF gets kidnapped and you want to track her down. That's it basically. There is sooo much stuff inbetween but the problem is it all feels like filler. Activate this thing, deactivate this signal, talk to this person, get this file. Who cares. It's all meaningless fluff. Nothing is really happening. Most of the sidequests you can't really do anything crazy either. It would be more enjoyable if you could for example betray NPCs and do completely evil things. Or irrational things where everyone gets screwed. But you can't really do much. Oh look I can either help this prostitute or help extort money out of her. That's basically it. Who cares about this person? I think this is probably why the sidequests felt so mediocre. They were all inconsequential in the grand scheme of things and involved characters you only meet during that quest, so that character you helped? Who cares because you'll never see them again. The ending presents a somewhat interesting choice about technology and centralized power but that's about it in terms of the interesting part of the story. The game does present a decent amount of morally grey situations. Do you let the bad guy go to free a hostage or endanger the hostage to murder the guy? Do you let a ton of people die to save one person who is more important to the mission? There are only a few of these though unfortunately. It also doesn't help that the main villains are basically not present. It's literally random tasks but then OH WAIT this has a connection to my GF, with bosses literally showing up randomly to mess with you.

So overall the game has a pretty shitty story, decent ending, and boring tedious gameplay and is way too fucking long. I don't really recommend it, though I do recommend the soundtrack. if you are forced to play it you'll be okay though its not that bad.

How to make it better:

Make it way way shorter. Just cut out a few levels. It doesn't help I played the directors cut which included the too-long DLC. But still plenty of the missions could have been much shorter or removed as they were just simple fetch or whatever quests.

Sidequests need a complete overhaul story wise. They should have had reoccurring characters and more meaningful consequences to the sidequests. Instead its help a stranger who you will never see again. None of them really stood out to me in terms of interesting moral dilemmas or anything either.

Better story: Your GF gets kidnapped sure. But how about instead of chasing a bunch of mysterious strangers you get more about each of the bosses. Maybe you can work for them even. Each one could present a different goal and philosophy that you learn as you progress through their layer. Backstory especially could help. Why did this guy decide to get augmented in the first place? Why are they helping kidnap a scientist? What are their goals? Instead we are basically left in the dark about everything until the end. Maybe you can even convert one of them to help you out and they do stuff in the last level. So many options really. I think the major flaw is that they thought mystery could carry the story. But really its just an excuse to present nothing for the majority of the game.

Gameplay: Weapons that aren't just your typical guns could help. More movement options would help a ton. Climbing walls and such. The game is practically unplayable stealthly without the go invisible upgrade. That's bad design right there. There is also no way to distract guards. That would have helped a ton. Throw distraction then run around as the enemies face the other way. The game needs more freedom. It makes me feel like a rat in a maze. I want to feel like a real super-human.