Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut

Human Revolution is a miracle, in a sense that it's one of the few astronomically small number of "legacy sequels", made by entirely different dev team than originals, that is actually great. Immensely atmospheric game - and a big part of it is Michael McCanns soundtack, that captures perfectly autumnal Detroit vibes, wonderment of futuristic tech and dark cyberpunk undertones. Same with artstyle which is absolutely gorgeous - from the world itself to the clothes that characters wear (which were designed by the real world closing studio). I'm one of 3 people who actually liked the "gold" filter, and think it adds to the mood of the game, removing it from Direcor's Cut was a mistake. But thankfully there's a mod to restore it.

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[h1]I never asked for this[/h1] [h2]If you wanna make enemies, try to change something[/h2] [h3]The year is 2027. It is a time of great innovation[/h3] [h3]It is also a time of chaos and conspiracy[/h3] [h3]I don't even know who's side I'm on[/h3]

What a great game. I couldn't put it down. You play as head of security for a futuristic augmentation technology megacorporation based in a now-fragmented US. What is augmentation? It's basically like a cyborg robotic implant. Much of the lore of the game focuses on this research into making man one with machine - which it ends up, you are entangled in, in more ways than one. The worldbuilding is pretty good. The characters, while not the deepest, are believable. The graphics are good for the time. The music is nothing to write home about, but it does its job. But most important is the gameplay, and I think it's phenomenal. The game gives you a ton of freedom in how you want to play it. If you want to be a stealthy hacker, you can do that (the hacking is simple but quite fun, that was basically my preferred playstyle). If you want to be a guns blazing super soldier, you can do that. You want to be an assassin who silently picks off every enemy, you can do that. You can even play as a pacifist and not kill anyone. Depending on what augments you decide to invest into, different paths will open up to you. Very often you'll find yourself in a tricky situation, where there's one solution, but it requires super strength. Or maybe there's another solution, but it requires super jumping skills. Or there's the brute force option of just gunning your way through everyone, and hoping your combat augments can get you through it. Etc. They've done a solid job at giving you many solutions to each problem that the game presents you with. I have to give a lot of credit to the level designers for that. Being creative in the way you handle those things and seeing the payoff from the things you've invested into is the real fun of the game. It's nowhere near as in-depth as a game like the latest Hitman titles in terms of stealth options, but it gives you many choices in a different kind of way, and the stealth system works quite well for what it is. The weapon system is a ton of fun too. There is quite a wide array of weapons available to you that can be significantly customized. I'll just let you know that there is no way in hell you can have access to every weapon, so just accept that from the start, and try to focus on a couple early on that will give you some versatility. Later in the game you'll get access to more specialized and powerful weapons, so I'd recommend saving some space for at least one of those. I personally had a ton of fun with the laser rifle - though I'd like to point something out with regards to it. It appears that it is bugged in more than one way on the PC version. Firstly, there is no scope texture or reticle to help you aim. That makes it really difficult to use. However, I found the solution for that - if you go into the settings and turn on the in-game reticle (which is pretty useful anyway), it will, for some reason, make the scope visible, which makes aiming it way more realistic. The other bug is also kind of game breaking, because the laser rifle consumes ammo WAY slower than it should. So basically, once you get it, it is an infinite source of laser beams, and it is not supposed to be that way. That said, you get it late enough in the game that by then you'd have some pretty OP weapons, but it really does take it up a notch. I tried not to over-rely on it, but it is really fun to use. I think the game does a decent job of not trying to push a narrative onto you, which would have been easy to do considering the subject matter. That said, I did have one complaint about the ending: [spoiler] that being anti-Illuminati forces you to be anti-technology, when there's really no reason that those two should go together - though I suppose I can see what they were getting at. I just wanted to expose the Illuminati. I didn't want to push the world one way or the other when it came to human augmentation. But that's the choice it gives you so it is what it is. [/spoiler] For the record, I haven't played the first one, but I do want to now, and many people say its their favorite game of all time, so I'm excited to get around to it. All in all, I think it would be damn near impossible to find a better value proposition for a game these days. It's selling for less than a cup of coffee on sale. This brings me back to when AAA games were high-quality and not just pretty graphics but full of annoying millennial self-insert characters, repetitive slop, and leftist propaganda. It makes me realize how far the mainstream games industry has fallen. I would recommend this game to anyone. 9/10

Замечательная игра. Конечно тяжело быть наследником первой Deus Ex - та игра опередила своё время и до сих пор ощущается навероятно, пускай технически она подустала. Тем не менее Human Revolution взяла очень многое от своего предка, добавив визуальную эстетику технологического ренессанса и побольше углубившись в тему трансгуманизма. Eidos действительно удалось создать красивый, богатый на детали мир, который лично меня не отпускал до самого конца - уж очень было интересно ходить по закоулкам и читать личную почту неписей, порой очень много забавных и интересных историй скрыто там. Да, даже на 2011 год некоторые детали топорны (по типу стрельбы и общее ощущение от движения персонажа, конечно) и эта система укрытий - прямой привет от Gears of War, но всё остальное - просто пушка. Рекомендую к ознакомлению всем любителям жанра киберпанк и иммерсив-симов - по сути именно с этой игры начался недолгий ренессанс (забавно) этой игровой философии.

I never asked for this... But this game has left a mark on my soul with its music, story, atmosphere. So many memories of my youth when I got introduced to this masterpiece. And since then not a single immersive sim came close to what Deus Ex: Human Revolution has achieved

By all intents and purposes, this game should've flopped. Trying to bring back Deus Ex to a modern audience (the year of our lord 2011) a decade after the original with all the changes in the real world was a colossal task. Luckily, Eidos Montreal managed to do it and then some. I wouldn't call it on par with the original or worse. I feel like both can stand together pretty strongly as products of their era. I wont spoil, so don't worry. STORY This game (much like the original) are the type of lore, worldbuilding and storytelling that'll make you wanna off yourself smooth off. You ever see something in a videogame that mirrors reality so damn well, except it's bad and you have a moment of "Oh f*ck"? Take that feeling and make A WHOLE GAME ABOUT IT (that isn't the 3rd act of metal gear solid 2). I played this game last decade and it felt like a fascinating look into an alternate reality, a dystopian one, and thought nothing more of it. Playing it NOW though? It's bloody grim, brother (Too bad we don't get the cool aug tech and are stuck with cringe lame corpos who shill a pathetic AI that'd make Eliza actually feel offended). The major strength of this game lies in its dialogue, and trust me you'll get A LOT of it. There's even "dialogue boss fights" where you must try to convince specific characters (and get very well rewarded if you do) and you can only do it by dissecting what they say according to their personality. In general, prepare to read A LOT in this game. I'd also like to highlight how this game handles karma, because there IS a karma system...kinda. You take a decision and something happens from it. It's up to you to decide whether it benefits you or not. Does it? Cool! It ties with your own morality and objectives. Does it not? Deal with it, HOWEVER, the game wont scold you for it, it wont give you "angel or devil points" or any of that garbage. Things merely happen and it's up to your own standards to measure your successes and shortcomings. You know, treating you, THE PLAYER, like an adult. It wont tell you "do this to earn X" or even give you hints many times that if you decide Y you'll get Z. You have to go out of your way to explore, and more often than not, the game will react to it. Even the endings are fairly gray morally speaking with their own ups and downs, so you may end up giving it a solid thought for a moment before deciding (if you immersed yourself enough in the story and learned properly about all the dirty little secrets the characters have that is) GAMEPLAY. Immersive sim at its finest. There's a reason this franchise is the top dog and pioneer of the genre. The amount of choices you make in how you approach challenge makes this a very replayable title for different skill builds. Hacker, stealth, assault, the maps all have benefits for these playstyles and the director's cut thankfully addressed the shortcomings the bosses had in the original release by not making them a straight confrontation (stealth players rejoyced at now being able to set up traps or pit androids/turrets against them lol). EXPLORE, LOOK AROUND, There's almost always something somewhere to loot and learn about. ART Michael McCann my lord, the music for this game is fantastic. No notes, it's simply good, fitting and wonderful. The designs of the world, characters and technology is also very well handled. If anything I feel like we as a species failed to reach these standards in tech design since next year the game's events begin to take place (...man it's been a long time) and the most we have is lame flat white soulless corpo garbage. This game's 2027 looks way fancier yet still feasible and at the same time so far away from what we have today, a mere year prior. NEGATIVES. Many wont like the endingtron 3000 and that is ok (though it'd be dishonest to pin that on this game alone given the original also more or less left the ending down to a simple choice). The missing link...thematically, story-wise and lore-wise I don't mind it. It's the "we'll wipe all your aug progress" part that bothered me greatly MAINLY because it happens at such a late stage in the game (about 2 maps before the end). I get what they were going for, but it could've been handled better. I haven't mentioned anything about performance 'cause before booting the game I gave PCGamingWiki a visit and applied every patch, bugfix, etc they listed there to make my experience smoother, and it did! I had genuinely ZERO issues in my +30 hours of gameplay thanks to that, however I do know some will argue "my game should boot up just fine without having to tweak it so much!" and I can't really be against that mindset 'cause the original port of the game ran smoothly and DC is...shaky. Overall, this game is a gem, the original is a gem, AND I'LL FOREVER CURSE SQUARE ENIX FOR WHAT IT HAS DONE TO THIS FRANCHISE. THEY DIDN'T DESERVE DEUS EX, THEY DIDN'T DESERVE EIDOS MONTREAL. THEY SHOULD'VE SANK AWAY WITH ALL THEIR ***** FINAL FANTASY ***** THOSE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ***** ***** ***** *******

It really is amazing how well this game stood against the test of time. I recently went back to it and it's still beautiful, the mechanics are solid, and the exploration is fun. Does a great job at setting up the series. Even in 2026, it's still definitely worth a playthrough.