While the Director's cut is definitely the better of the two Human Revolution versions, it still sadly falls short of DX1 and what made it such a great game. Now, don't get me wrong, Human Revolution is still a really good game, but I cannot call it a great game due to the fact it dropped the ball at the end. The final two levels were very sub-par to put it lightly and what made it worse was the fact this game had its moments of being as engaging as DX1, but it petered out as it progressed, especially after the halfway point when you return to Detroit from Picus. It just felt very rushed from that point on. I mean, the whole riot scene was not the least bit engaging. It just felt like it was added in pointlessly because nothing you do adds or engages you in it.
Sure, saving Malik from Belltower was very satisfying later, but again, when you return to Hengsha, it feels very rushed and not much added content was added. Heck, even saving Tracer Tong, while a nice little mission, didn't really add much other than having Adam telling him how easy it is for power to slip from his fingers, which would he would then tell JC Denton 25 years later. Again, a nice touch, but that sadly it all is. It would have been nice to talk with Tracer Tong as a young kid some more. Maybe have Jensen impute some more of his wisdom to the young Tong or even learn more what makes Tracer Tong tick as a character. This game seriously missed a good opportunity to expand upon Tracer Tong and help us appreciate the character he grew to be in DX1.
After that? Yea... the levels pretty much suck. It's too easy to save the scientists, defeat Jaron(unless you stupidly get the new Bio-chip) take down the Hyron Project and shut down Darrow's signal. I wish more thought and effort had went into them because it just feels like the development team really ran out of time to do so. Ironically enough though, the DLC Missing Link mission that came out afterward was actually pretty darn good. Sure, it was sorta linear and repetitive, but I really loved engaging it was. It goes from you trying to get off the Belltower naval base to helping Keitner uncover a dark secret about Burke's vile experiments to having to save the prisoners and Tiffany Kavanagh from being gassed to death and then taking down the evil Burke mano o mano. Honestly, I loved how urgent and personal the game makes these parts. It makes you feel like you have to hurry and stop the madness on this base before it gets any worse. Stuff like this the Singapore level desperately needed because I hate how you cannot fail at saving them. You just show up, fight some Spec ops, talk to them after finding out where they are and then send a virus to get the guards to open the doors and let you fight Jaron. Really disappointing to put it lightly.
Sadly, the story wasn't the worst part of the game. There were other things I did not like even more so. For example, I really did not care for the takedown system. I mean, on one hand, it's cool to see you knock out people with your fists or impale them with your blades, but on the other, I hated how easy it was to do. It never felt like you had control other than knocking them out or killing them. All the animations were random, so you couldn't just do the ones you liked best. Worse yet, some looked painfully awkward and unrealistic. Yea, I know it's a game and not meant to be taken too seriously, but some of the takedowns didn't even look like it would even possibly knock someone out, which kinda made them not as fun to do.
Not to mention I hated how easy it was for enemies to revive another ally if you knocked them out. I mean, just tapping them on the shoulder? Please... While DX1's system wasn't that much better since being knocked out was the same as being killed, this one swung the pendulum too far in the other direction. I mean, why couldn't they have a 2-5 minute timer on how long they were out cold? They would have made it a bit more realistic about enemies getting up instead of 10 seconds later. -.-
Speaking of takedowns, I really hated how the prequel games got rid of melee weapons altogether other than your fists and blades. Yea, while that is cool to an extent, I REALLY missed not having something like a sword, crowbar, baton to use to possible knock enemies out or cut them down. Honestly, that would have made takedowns so much more fun because you would choose which weapon to use, whether it be bare fists or with something like a metal baseball bat to knock the crap out of them. C'mon, you can't tell me that wouldn't have been satisfying to use if executed properly.
But no... instead they went with a more simplified and dumbed down approach, which made it less enjoyable. Yea, while on the topic of the game feeling dumbed down, I also hated how the weapons the enemies use were alot more streamlined as well. They mostly used pistols, shotguns, machine guns and maybe an occasional minigun and sniper rifle, depending on the enemy type of course. Seriously, I missed how enemies in DX1 could pretty much use any weapon against you, whether it be a taser, a knife, a rocket launcher, a plasma rifle, etc. It actually made you be a bit more cautious because an enemy could kill you if you were too reckless trying to attack. Heck, it's alot easier to take them down too. You can take down an ogre with one takedown move. You couldn't do that against a MJ12 commando from DX1. If he spotted you, you were screwed because he was fast and could kill you easily if you didn't evade and counter fast enough.
Another thing I certainly didn't care for was the hacking system. I understand they wanted to make it a bit more complicated to pull off, but the developers got seriously carried with it and made it more convoluted than necessary. I mean, why couldn't it just be a bar where you test to see if your skill level can hack it or not? Why make it a pointless mini game that only makes it easier to get caught if there are guards around? Sure, it's nice to get extra goodies like hacking software, credits and xp, but couldn't they just have a hacking system where you have a normal hacking and advanced one for those wanting that extra stuff, but would take a bit longer to do? Again, I don't see why it was necessary to make it this complicated.
But by far the absolute worst thing about Human Revolution is the persuasion/conversation system. Ugh... while it's nice to see them SORTA fix it in Mankind Divided, and believe me, I'll get to that game and its pros/cons soon enough, it doesn't change the fact this system was horrible and should never been implemented to begin with. Where do I begin?
First of all, the system is random as heck when it comes to conversations. While the first response stays the same, the rest are nothing more than a pathetic slot machine, varying at the drop of a hat. It's maddening because of how unrealistic it is. I mean, people don't have 3 different responses to someone's words. They usually have one, like a NORMAL person would. Seriously, who in their right mind thought this was a good idea? It's incredibly frustrating to figure out. Worse yet, you barely get any clues on how to answer them, even if you have the social enhancement. You pretty much have to guess and hope for the best because if you don't, you're pretty much screwed. What a joke!
The only thing that saves this from being completely awful is the fact if you do get the social enhancement, you can save the whole persuasion going on by getting the right pheromones when they come up. On one hand, this definitely simplifies things, but on the other, it makes the conversation even more unrealistic and believable when you do persuade someone. Again, people don't have conversations like this. I swear, it's like the writers got ridiculously carried away and thought the more intricate and detailed the conversation was, the better it would be to pull off when done correctly. Well, I don't know about the others, but I HATED it because of how massively complicated it was. Why couldn't it have been just a simple four choice answer like DX1's system was, where one is the best answer and others range from bad to mediocre? There, simple and effective. There was no need to have 3 different responses to each answer and then hoping to guess you picked right.
Anyway, I've talked about the bad things long enough, so to wrap this up, I'll mention one good thing I loved about this game.
1: Some of the new weapons added.
While I wouldn't say all the weapons in Human Revolution were good, I did enjoy a few of them. For starters, I liked how this game actually had a rifle made specifically for tranquilizer darts. Honestly, that felt like a great idea because I like the idea of long range when knocking out targets rather than just close up or sorta middle ground when it comes to the crossbow in DX1.
The Heavy Rifle was another great weapon, especially once you maxed out its stats. Heck yea, this baby was freakin awesome then! While I thought the ammo capacity was a bit too big for the inventory screen, I do sorta understand why since it seriously was OP as heck when maxed out. Speaking of that, the Grenade Launcher was by far the best weapon in the game. I didn't like the fact it was DLC, but the Director's cut added it, so it sorta made it more tolerable. That and it makes it so ammo is scarce, so you can't just go nuts firing that thing, giving it some balance. A great addition if I do say so myself.
Lastly, and I doubt hardly anyone is going to agree with me on this one, but I nevertheless loved the Plasma Rifle. Now, I understand why most didn't. It was given way too late in the game and way under-powered. That and the only thing you can use it on if you don't hack the game is on crazy aug people in Panchea or the Hyron Project. So yea, on one hand, this weapon was not well executed, but on the other, the potential was certainly there. It had a nice design, it had a pretty decent firing sound. Plus, the green beams it shot were kind cool to see as well.
To me, this weapon didn't fail so much because of being a bad weapon in general, but because the programmers did not give it the effort and attention it needed to make it good. This weapon should have been accessible in as early as the Tai Yong Medical level with another in the underground Picus area. After that, make it so you cannot get it again until after the Singapore level when you defeat Jaron. That way, the game forces you to get it then or forget it entirely because you'll be behind the eight ball in upgrading it to max potential when heading to Panchea.
That and it give it a big time stat boost! A 4 out of 10 damage as a default setting? Seriously, developers? How is a futuristic weapon less powerful than a shotgun? That doesn't make a lick of sense! It should have been a default damage rating of 8-9 and then maybe give it the ability to boost it past the default 10 settling to one like 12-15 to really make it special. Again, this is a futuristic sci-fi weapon we're talking about here, so it should have been the most powerful non explosive weapon in the game. At the very least, have it be in the top 3 of most powerful weapons of Human Revolution. A real shame the Plasma Rifle was misused in this game because it had massive potential to be a super fun weapon in this game.
So yea, in a nutshell, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a really good game, but it just falls short of being a great game for reasons mentioned above. I wanted to love this game more, believe me, but I sadly cannot. It has better game mechanics than DX1, sure, but fun gameplay isn't enough for a game franchise like Deus Ex to warrant more than a 7 out 10 for me. That's only the starting point. For a Deus Ex to truly be great, it has to have a better story, better weapons and a much more engaging universe to explore.