The story and many gameplay elements are solid, the biggest feature are the choices as this review will explain.
Sounds interesting, however the execution of the game really puts together well. There are many elements which allow you to play any mission any way you want. Further more, depending on how the player interacts with NPCs or the enivornment, with have consequences from a small to big scale.
The game is a first person, action and adventure hybrid, which allows you to interact with other characters in the game which drives the story.
Firstly you are given an objective and with the huge open world, gives the player an option to go anywhere he wants, the first level has you trying to enter the Statue of Liberty with locked front doors. You can either find a password to gain access to a terminal or find the backway and climb your way up on freight containers and crates and jump on the second level of the statue.
A key portion of the game has the player talking to other characters in the game, some of the characters prove useful as they can give you items, which are needed to complete an objective or to help you along your way. Some characters might sell you stuff. Sometimes you are offered to ask a question and choices will appear, depending on the player's choice, the characters may react friendly or hostile and this can change the outcome of some objectives and other people's reaction towards you.
This feature plays the majority of the game. However other key elements of the game include inventory. The player has limited inventory, however the freedom comes into player as Deus Ex offers over 15 different weapons, each weapon is classes, such as Pistols, Melee, Rifles, Heavy, etc… this gives the player a good option to choose from and offers the player to combat anyway they want, also the player can simply sneak by the enemy and avoid combat altogether. Weapons can be improved with weapon mods found throughout the level.
The player can hack into computer terminals to control bots and security cameras and lock pick doors, however to do this, other items include multitools to help you hack into devices and lockpicks to unlock doors. You also have a Nano-key Device which allows you to collect Nano-keys and open specific doors throughout the game.
Other items include food and drinks which can heal the player, drugs which can harm the player and other useful items which the player may find which allows you to interact in the game.
With these weapons and tools comes another feature in the game, which are skills, complete missions, exploring and other parts of the game awards you with skill points, these points are spend on improving your skills, these range from weapon skills to hacking, medical and lock picking, there a lot more skills which boost the effects of the different items you can obtain in the game.
Combat sets a challenge in the game, you come across extremely tough and powerful enemies later on in the game.
The most important part of the game, which centre around the story are Augmentations, these are devices which are implanted in the main characters body and when activated, greatly enhances the effects of the players ability. Good examples are running faster, having vision to see other people though walls, more melee power, targeting power, etc… however, the player has to pick up a canister and has to choose one out of the two augmentations, each augmentation can be upgraded until up to level 4, with the expectation of the light, which remains at level 1, Augmentations uses up a bio-electric energy, which needs to be refill once in a while when the player runs out.
The games story is the best part, there are twist and turns which drive the player completing objectives and finding out what's in the Deus Ex universe, with newspapers, digital texts, emails, etc… Some of the stories elements have used Roman and Greeks myths as references.
Unfortunately, the game has it's poor points, the game uses the Unreal Engine and with it's dark theme, the graphics look poor, with simple boxes with textures stuck on them, also the techno music is bland and can come across as annoying.
Despite this… the gameplay with the mix of action and adventure elements and highly driven story make this an excellent title to recommend, this mix has pushed the genre forward and does make this hybrid game stand out from the rest.