This review contains spoilers
It's... ok. Some of the main frustrations involve the hilariously long and boring intro - there's games with long intros that set the scene in an interesting way, don't have multiple start/stop points and definitely not following someone around for a few minutes listening to biochemistry jargon that disengages the player from the start.
I despise the multiple second knockout animations - seeing it once or twice was fine, seeing it 100 times not so much.
Hacking mini-game was not fun it was annoying to do 100 times.
Boss fights were terrible and seeing that it was a last-min addition makes a lot of sense as to why they were bad (as were a lot of other design choices).
Dialogue often had very little impact on the story, then on the other side I also wasn't given enough choice with the many many pre-rendered cutscenes where I might as well have been watching a movie instead as I'm merely watching Adam Jensen do things as opposed to making those choices myself. Worst was after one boss where I'm asked "will you save her?" during one of these cutscenes where I thought I'd have a choice but I didn't.
From a pure gameplay perspective, I enjoyed trying to stealth my way through it and it gives me enough options to (I didn't even use the cloak ability until the very end of the game). It's probably the biggest positive from the game and gave a lot of Splinter Cell vibes. Some of the vent placements were quite funny like having a bathroom vent going to a random room. It seems like they decided on multiple paths to an objective then just filled the area with whatever but it's not something you dwell on too much.
Despite going non-lethal (I didn't in the intro so no pacifist achievement for me), a few times I was being talked to like I'm a serial killer apart from that one Gandhi line at the start. Just added to the experience of my choices not really mattering.
So for the story, the game at the start presents itself as a conflict between megacorps that want to sell augs unregulated, and people that at the very least want it to be regulated. Unfortunately, it only really scratches the surface of what could've been a good social/political commentary game. The main thing the game talks about is augmentations and what would it be like if we all had them with the only real consequence mentioned being "losing our humanity".
One of the first main enemies you meet, I kept him alive, did a side mission for him and he gave me some password and code that helped for the main mission which is an interesting way of having your choices actually matter. Cool, maybe I'll see him again. I do see him again, during a main mission and he's just another guard and I have to knock him out. No voice lines from either Adam or him. It felt very abrupt and he was never spoken of again. Maybe it's a bit harsh but I feel like that saga could've ended smoother.
There's a big shadowy cabal who's controlling everything from the shadows... called the Illuminati. You can tell this game was released in the early 2010s. I think the devs' idea would be to start small and local with the story, then expand into the bigger picture with the Illuminati. The issue is that by the end of the game, there's so many loose ends with the smaller things which are still quite significant and you have zero clue what has happened to most of the people in the game.
A lot of the game felt rushed and unfinished but overall it's not a bad game as the gameplay itself was fun enough. The story has its moments where your choices can have significant impacts later on (the biochip change was clever and caught me out) but overall was just disappointing for me and left a lot of questions unanswered.
I despise the multiple second knockout animations - seeing it once or twice was fine, seeing it 100 times not so much.
Hacking mini-game was not fun it was annoying to do 100 times.
Boss fights were terrible and seeing that it was a last-min addition makes a lot of sense as to why they were bad (as were a lot of other design choices).
Dialogue often had very little impact on the story, then on the other side I also wasn't given enough choice with the many many pre-rendered cutscenes where I might as well have been watching a movie instead as I'm merely watching Adam Jensen do things as opposed to making those choices myself. Worst was after one boss where I'm asked "will you save her?" during one of these cutscenes where I thought I'd have a choice but I didn't.
From a pure gameplay perspective, I enjoyed trying to stealth my way through it and it gives me enough options to (I didn't even use the cloak ability until the very end of the game). It's probably the biggest positive from the game and gave a lot of Splinter Cell vibes. Some of the vent placements were quite funny like having a bathroom vent going to a random room. It seems like they decided on multiple paths to an objective then just filled the area with whatever but it's not something you dwell on too much.
Despite going non-lethal (I didn't in the intro so no pacifist achievement for me), a few times I was being talked to like I'm a serial killer apart from that one Gandhi line at the start. Just added to the experience of my choices not really mattering.
So for the story, the game at the start presents itself as a conflict between megacorps that want to sell augs unregulated, and people that at the very least want it to be regulated. Unfortunately, it only really scratches the surface of what could've been a good social/political commentary game. The main thing the game talks about is augmentations and what would it be like if we all had them with the only real consequence mentioned being "losing our humanity".
One of the first main enemies you meet, I kept him alive, did a side mission for him and he gave me some password and code that helped for the main mission which is an interesting way of having your choices actually matter. Cool, maybe I'll see him again. I do see him again, during a main mission and he's just another guard and I have to knock him out. No voice lines from either Adam or him. It felt very abrupt and he was never spoken of again. Maybe it's a bit harsh but I feel like that saga could've ended smoother.
There's a big shadowy cabal who's controlling everything from the shadows... called the Illuminati. You can tell this game was released in the early 2010s. I think the devs' idea would be to start small and local with the story, then expand into the bigger picture with the Illuminati. The issue is that by the end of the game, there's so many loose ends with the smaller things which are still quite significant and you have zero clue what has happened to most of the people in the game.
A lot of the game felt rushed and unfinished but overall it's not a bad game as the gameplay itself was fun enough. The story has its moments where your choices can have significant impacts later on (the biochip change was clever and caught me out) but overall was just disappointing for me and left a lot of questions unanswered.