I am going to go with sideways, leaning downwards. The main, overarching reason why, is comparison to the first Deus Ex - which I played when it just came and which i compare to this title.
The three main problems: artificial environments, being unleashed into the main, central open hub too soon, and items/augs balance.
Hear me out.
1. What i mean by artificial environments: these are both, of course, _games_ so reality is skewed in order to make game fun. By no means is first deus ex realistic in its environments - but its _immersive_ enough to make you forget that. In Mankind Divided, its like they took Human Revolution a step forward and made a checklist for each possible environment you're in, and made sure there's at least ONE vent, ONE hacking access, ONE sneaking access, ONE cover+firearms access and so on.
It doesn't feel at all like you have to figure out the optimal approach or figure out how to use relatively "realistic" environment to your advantage - it looks exactly like all pathways were built for specific approach and there's no sidelining. If you pick hacking path, you'll encounter no enemies. If you pick fighting path, you'll have cover all around you. If you pick sneaking path, you'll have random bottles boxes and other sh*t you can throw around.
To me - this kills immersion. I can't get my head out of the idea that i'm just playing a video game and immerse myself.
2. Central hub is nice, and its huge, with dozens and dozens of apartments you can go to, vents to crawls around, completely separate sewer layer, shops, storage lockers, etc etc etc.... the thing is, I fear of missing important things out, especially in a game like Deus Ex, but I also primarily _want_ to progress my storyline. So what happens? I slog around solving various uninteresting side quests which involve very little to no action at all, I scout high and low, every vent and everything for any precious praxis kits I might've missed.
This is not fun.
Of course - you could say, well why are you doing that? Do what you find fun.
The problem is, this is Deus Ex title - it rewards exploration. I don't want to miss out on cool content, ESPECIALLY because when you leave hubs and come back, they change. Items get removed/replaced, quests disappear or become unsolvable, etc etc etc.
I don't think I ever finished a mainline quest in any Bethesda's titles for the same reason - the openness is just too much and I end up being sidetracked with small stuff so much that by the time I am done with it, the main quest is just a vague abstract memory and I am not very interested in continuing it.
3. Finally, augs and items.
In the original, augs were the _support_ system. You also had a skilltree, but augs were like small 'cheats' you could use to make certain things easier. There was always a way to sneak around without cloaking, and you could always find a password or a code sitting somewhere, and you could deduce LOGICALLY where it was and figure out a chain of small self-assigned missions you had to accomplish to get it.
For example - you wanted access to a numbered locker. You'd find a registry and figure out whose name was assigned to a locker. You'd find their office by the name, and it was locked. You could've used multitool to hack the keypad, or a lockpick to pick the lock, OR you could've gone and hack the computer of a sysadmin to get out the list of all access codes. I don't actually recall this well, but I think you could've also hacked the whole network from YOUR own office computer, and gain access to ANY login from there - including the computer from your target office. Then you'd go in the office and likely find a locker keycard there.
Here, its more like metroidvania - you're locked out of pathways until you have certain augs, so the choice in unlocks isn't really a choice. You MUST unlock hacking augs to hack anything, and you must spend quite few praxis kits on this because you got three separate hacking skills you need (stealth, fortification and even just a simple hacking-level barrier).
In order to go through poisonous gas, you must unlock respiration - that's 2 praxis kits, not just one. In order to go through electrical fields, you must spend 4 praxis kits. In order to hack through all keypads, you need at the very least 4-5 praxis kits, but you'll also absolutely want at least 3 more to upgrade fortifications and maybe invest some in stealth hacking too (additiona 3-4).
In original - you could ALWAYS hack anything, the upgrade came from your SKILL and it only affected the time you can stay in the system, and you could almost ALWAYS find a login in some email - so you'd just hack to find that email, then login as normal.
You had hazmat suit that you could find or buy, so you could go through gas without augs. Same for EM fields.
So finally - for me, the design just isn't here. Its too "gamey" and I don't find it immersive.
The storyline is cool and all, graphics are cool, and there are some minor annoyances with 'flexible jump height', but overall - the biggest issue is really just that those three main factors keep me out of immersion, continually.
So much in fact that it makes me just wanna go replay the old deus ex and forget about this.
It leaves the same taste in my mouth like watching modern remakes of old classic action movies; it forgets its job is to entertain, and it makes that secondary to storytelling.
