A few flaws, but nearly 40 hours of immersive gameplay - fantastic

User Rating: 8 | Deus Ex: Human Revolution PC
I am probably one of the very few fans of Deus Ex: Invisible War. Yes, it had incredibly cramped claustrophobic environments and an incomprehensible storyline, but after playing through it 3 or 4 times, I found it more & more immersive each time I played, It just seemed to grow in stature. Deus Ex Human Revolution is just as immersive, but thankfully you only need to play it through once to see it at its best. The claustrophobic environments are gone, replaced by sprawling cityscapes, that its quite easy to get lost in. Admittedly there are only two main cities, both of which you visit more than once, but this is not a great problem, since each city has so many nooks & crannies to explore. The storyline, too has been tightened up considerably. Instead of a football team of secret societies and evil conspiracies, eah with competing objectives that you must choose from, there are only about 3 or 4. For Deus EX, that's absolute barebones.

You are given choices about how you can go about your missions, stealth or going in with guns blazing. Unfortunately the game, particularly in the early stages, does a lot of the choosing for you. If you do choose to try combat, trust me, you will die many, many times, because the game doles out ammo with an eyedropper, and before you acquire some augmentations that even things up a bit, you have all the durability of a wet paper bag in a windstorm. More often then not, if you choose combat, an armoured guard will stroll up to you, usually while you're frantically cycling through all your weapons to find one that still has a couple of bullets left, casually fire one bullet, two or three tops, into you, gurgle, gurgle, down you go, load saved game. Believe me, the moaning, gurgling sound that Jensen makes as he dies will irritate you beyond reason. because you are going to hear it a lot. Fair enough, if the game is going to offer choices as to how you choose to play, at least ensure that both choices are equally supported.

Yes, its a great game, it is incredibly immersive, just be prepared for frustration piled on frustration for the first half of the game if you feel like some combat.