Repetitive and linear rat maze
Perhaps I did not pay enough attention to the details revealed before the launch, but I was imagining some kind of Fallout 3 experience, where I could roam around a huge city and explore freely and take on masses of quests and side-quests. Playing in any way as I see fit, as a thief, as an assassin, as a bad-ass killing machine and so on. I love this kind of game, so I was pretty excited, even pre-ordering the game weeks before the release.
However, when I was met with what is much better described as a set of linear levels glued together with a series of cut-scenes, I was left mighty disappointed. Granted, you do have some limited freedom in how to play out each mission, but as far as I can see they mainly branch out only in two directions: Stealth or action.
Furthermore, the levels are far from a sandbox experience, but rather confined rooms and hallways with little or no room for exploration outside the exact path the level designers have chosen for you to follow. You are left with just a very few choices to make when you play through it. A typical choice pattern is:
A. Go in brute force and just kill a bunch of people. Hard, and will likely result in backup forces coming in.
B. Go stealth, analyze movement patters of enemy soldiers, neutralizing them one by one while no one are watching, dragging their bodies out of sight. I found this to be the most satisfying and challenging way to play.
C. Find an alternate route around. Usually by hacking or exploring a very limited alternate route layouts.
That's your great freedom for you right there, unless you count the freedom to use different weapons and skills after leveling up or scavenge the levels for stuff to pick up.
It's not a bad game in any way, I just feel it was presented as something it is not: A game where you have the full freedom to play the way you want.
In my opinion, at best you are just giving the illusion of freedom, while in fact, you are pretty much the lab rat of the level designers, running around in a maze where you can only choose from a "menu" of a few pre-selected choices.
A lot of bestselling games these days are linear with some illusion of freedom, and seems people love them anyway, or maybe they love them exactly because they are linear and hence easy to play.
If however, you are into sandbox, exploration RPGs like me, I'd suggest you just wait for Skyrim instead. In the meantime I will just play a few Fallout 3 add-ons to kill time.
I doubt I will ever finish Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I got bored by the repetitive gameplay after a couple of hours, and I am just not into playing games to chase it's scripted story sequences. When I start up a game, I want to play and not watch it. If I want a good story, I'll go see a movie or read a book.
But, that's just me, seems like lots of people love this game. Which on a personal note makes me wonder how much longer I will keep playing games, as it seems I am dead bored with current market trends... Then again, thank God for Indie games.