Deus Ex: Human Revolution is the first game in the reboot/prequel series of the Deus Ex series, and it does everything the original game did but better. It has a really cool cyberpunk story about augmentations and transhumanism, and it portrays how those things would interact with capitalism. Through the open world streets of the game you can find people both pro and anti augmentation, with the anti side ranging from "this is an unnatural affront to God" to "this only benefits the rich." And you'll also find harvesters, people who harvest augmented body parts to sell on the black market. The game is a little too mainstream to explicitly say "capitalism is the problem here," but I could feel the class struggle in this game's world. When I was playing and listening to all the game's opinions on augmentations I couldn't help but think, a lot of the problems here aren't inherent to the technology, it's about the system this technology finds itself in. All of this is really cool sci-fi that I could imagine actually happening one day. The game also does away with the original game's weird early 2000's racist voice acting of Chinese characters, and has them either speak English with a slight accent, or often has them actually speaking Mandarin. And the way that Hengsha is envisioned as this city that's had to build itself vertically in order to expand for its population is really cool. The other huge improvement on the original game that makes this one of my favorite games, is that the game will not give you enough skill points to invest in everything by the end. This forces you to have to really think about how you're going to augment your character, because those decisions will influence what ways you're able to approach any given situation. It's that gameplay choice that makes this a story that I don't think would be as effective in any other medium than games.

Edit: Well I just watched the three and a half hour long HBomb video that will surely become the only way anyone talks about this game going forward. So that certainly dates this review based on my teenage memories of playing this! A lot of my enjoyment of this certainly comes down to something HBomb says in his review, which is that at the time this game came out, unless you were playing retro PC games, there was nothing like this so it was kind of a breath of fresh air. It was my first immersive sim and I didn't even know that genre existed. I was also still a Liberal at the time and so even the small hints at the larger class issues this game touches on were like revelations to me. I think something interesting that comes out of sites like backloggd and letterboxd will be that you'll see a lot of reviews calling something groundbreaking when by all account it's not at all, but it will have been that user's first experience with that type of thing, and have completely shifted their perspective. I think I still enjoy this game over the original though. If only due to the fact that when I played the original, the moment I got the blue-lightsaber-destiny-sword I immediately switched to just massacring hoards of people with it because it made the game exponentially easier and quicker to get through, which made me turn off the "making interesting choices" part of my brain. And also the racist voice acting. Like, my god the racist voice acting.

Being the third sequel to one of the top 5 PC games of all time can be tough. The guys at Eidos Montreal nailed the game and pulled off one of the most anticipated games of all time. One of the best parts about Human Revolution is the engaging atmosphere and story to go along with it. You play as ex-SWAT turned security chief at Sarif Industries Adam Jensen. Sarif Industries is one of the leading corporations in human augmentation. Of course, there’s always rivals so the facility gets broken into one day and the top scientist gets stolen (among others) and is used for some secret project. The great thing about the story is that you’re led on constantly so you think the plot goes one way then quickly moves another way. When you start the game you will have no idea that the people involved are the main cause towards the end. The story is masterfully created and very entertaining.


Of course what makes Deus Ex so famous are the multiple ways you can approach getting to a goal. Use stealth and not knock out anyone, use tranq darts, stun guns, or just up close melee. If you don’t like that you can use silenced weapons and take everyone out, or just run through with a machine gun and blast everyone away. Of course, it’s not just how you kill people, but how you navigate the level. If you see a room full of 8 bad guys you can upgrade your augs to allow you to become invisible for a few seconds and dash across the room to the door you need. Don’t have that aug? You can find a vent somewhere and crawl through most of the area, but wait there’s a camera right where you need to be. Find the computer that controls cameras and hack into it and disable it. Or you can just blast your way through.

There are tons of options for every part of the game, but the augs are what will get you through. You can access an elevator that can bypass three whole floors of bad guys but it’s blocked by heavy crates. If you have the aug to move heavy objects your golden. If not find another way around as best as you can. The whole point is to choose a play style and augment yourself according to so if you want stealth use stealth add-ons, ability to see through walls, invisibility, and keep a tranq gun or silenced pistol. I love how there are so many options to choose and each section just flows and doesn’t require too much trial-and-error like most stealth action games.


You will come across conversations where you need to persuade someone to give you information and this is done through clever dialog choices, but you can use an augmentation to see what personality type the person is and how to persuade them. If you are having a hard time you get a chance to release pheromones as a last-ditch effort to persuade, but you must know the personality type so watch that meter carefully. These choices can be simple or huge such as how to disable turrets during a boss fight, or even to make whole missions easier. However, choices during the game don’t affect the endings so some people may feel this was all for nothing.

While those are the main parts of gameplay you can upgrade weapons, buy and sell at black markets, and even by Praxis kits for upgrading at limb clinics. Be warned though because the game is very hard if you choose to gun everyone down. You will lose life quickly and just a few shots will kill you. There are even a few boss fights, but I found these extremely difficult and required a lot of saving during the fight. The game also has a decent length of about 15-20 hours so you will be busy for a while.


I do have to mention that when the game came out there were horrible glitches and it performed terribly. I actually had to restart the game 1/4 through because of a glitch that prevented me from moving on to the next level. This is unacceptable, but by now 99% of the glitches have been fixed and the game performs smoothly now. The overall atmosphere is a lot like Blade Runner, but I felt it lacking with just people standing around in the linear levels. Sure you can run around, but the game is made up of hallways rather than an open world. The graphics look decent in DirectX 11, but they look abysmal in DirectX 9 so don’t expect this game to look amazing. Characters have low-resolution textures, as well as low poly models and the overall effects aren’t very impressive.

Overall Human Revolution is one of the best stealth action games to come out in a while, but most importantly, it re-creates the amazing choice based gameplay that the first game did so many years ago. If you can look past the dated visuals, linear level design, and difficult boss fights you will be pleased with lots of great game design as well as engrossing characters and an engaging story.

You know what, I DID ask for this, because this shit was a blast.

Felt nice to play a cyberpunk game that actually understood that the cyberpunk genre is not simply neon lights and sex dolls. Especially one where you have actual choices and consequences that could affect the outcome of your missions. Seriously, there's some 200 IQ moments to be had here, where the game definitely makes you feel smarter than you are. Or on the other hand, makes you feel as dumb as a brick, depending on how you handled the situation.

Combat wise the game is decent enough but the stealth definitely shines and is borderline amazing, though the occasional horseshit AI does hold it back a bit. Still, it's a damn fine game with an interesting story, great immersive sim elements, and a kickass soundtrack. It's just a shame that some dickface degenerate decided that boss fights should be added to this. Every time those came up my mouse teetered on the .5 star button. Also since I'm complaining, whoever added dickhead mines that have a 3,000 foot detection radius and don't come with a disarming tutorial, fuck you.

4 outta 5

CDPR y'all are some mid smokers for turning CP2077 into "Neon GTA: Scuffed Edition". Eidos already gave you the blueprint in 2011 (Except for the ending, which of course is pretty much the only thing CDPR took after).

I'd been meaning to play this game for a long time and I'm glad that I finally did. The story is engrossing and engaging, with lots of interesting characters and some cool story beats. It's not the most original story, but I'm a sucker for this conspiratorial type of story. I'd come in expecting more of a shooter, so it took some adjustment, but once I was more used to the stealth the game was an absolute blast. Loved sneaking around clearing an entire area and then stealthily exiting. The augmentation tree is also filled with some unique upgrades, many of which I was surprised to realize their usefulness as the game progressed. Excited to check out the rest of this series' history at some point.

It's hard to believe it's been 9 years since this game came out but I still really love it.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a pretty great experience wrapped up in cool art direction, fun options for different gameplay styles, and a pretty solid story.
I really adore the fact that this game doesn't punish a player for their choice in going loud, stealthy, lethal, non-lethal, etc. but rather opens up different doors of opportunities.

The main thing that'd I'd knock it for is certain awkward design choices like how stiff the controls can feel at times as well as the boss fights in the game. The boss sequences felt more like a wall to climb over than something to look forward to in the next playthrough.

Aside from that, pretty fun time.
If you get the chance, please try it out!

Decent but expected more from such a masterpiece of a first game

The gameplay:the greatest thing in the game,the gun play is fun and responsive,the augs are diverse and give room from experimentation,the cover mechanic is decent,the level desingn even though repetitive is not bad,there is a good variety of guns,and the gameplay is just overall crispy and fun.gun tier list:https://tiermaker.com/list/video-games/deus-ex-human-revolution-weapons-495477/2887514

The content is pretty good,you have in each level a good amount of side missions and the two open world levels there is are really fun,i would like more travel around the world like the original and see the landmarks of the place.

the story:this is where it starts to dip a little bit,my main problem with it is that they concentrate every single bit of story to just one problem and that is the augs,i would like a lot more if the augs were part of a much bigger picture rather than being the picture itself,and apart from that the history is just kind of forgetable.

the characters:another aspect that i just expected more,except for two maybe three characters the rest are not only forgetablle they are uniteresting and there interactions do not do it for me.chatacer tier list:https://tiermaker.com/list/video-games/deus-ex-characters-human-revolution-and-mankind-divided-1567000/2887538

The endings:they are all pretty damn good,they all give their points and there is no good or bad ending,plus that they have different little variations depending if you killed a lot,was a pacifist or mix.

In conclusion:I am dissapointed that it wasnt nearly as good at anything as the original and was overall uninspired,but it did have good gameplay,good level design and pretty good endings balancing the mediocrety to being decent.
Light to Decent 6

i really love the conversation battles here, and they're much much better without the omegaverse aug. it's fun to just have to read tone and expression.

the bloomy black and gold visual style is very nice, feels like i'm inside of a beehive.

the levels are nice little immersive sim mazes with plenty of alternate paths. the augs are largely underwhelming, there's not really any "cool" one. the ai is very dumb to the point where it's very easy to ghost the levels just with simple movement and no gadgets, but that's kind of fun in its own way. i found myself enjoying the game the most while playing it as a simplified rainbow six vegas, where it was all about getting into a good position and using my scarce ammo efficiently.

it would be nice if the story had any redeeming qualities other than the jensen/pritchard sexual tension.

Basically most of what you would expect from a Deus Ex sequel (or soft reboot prequel I guess, but you get the idea). The stealth gameplay is well designed, levels have multiple completion routes and there's a good catalog of equipment on offer.
The quality of the writing is disappointing in comparison to the original and even Invisible War, but it's not terrible either. It's a Hollywood film; pop culture sludge without a strong message. All the rambling about augmentations makes little sense, even in context.
Besides that the issues I have with the gameplay are minor, good game.