*SPOILERS AHEAD*
Finally got around to finishing it today. It was a solid entry in the series gameplay wise but the plot was just...not right at all. No showdown with Bob Page? How about MacReady? By the time Miller (whose voice actor was flatter than kangaroo roadkill, btw) was taken out I was convinced he was a double agent, I was sure of it...and then the game just ended! What?!
Rabi'ah is built up (in models at least) as this big deal, but we don't even get to see it, not even partially constructed! Would have made a nice bookend to the Dubai opening. Also, not wanting to sound like Zoolander here, but I was expecting it to be way larger than the model made it look. The hype around it made me think it was a city, but it looked smaller than Golem. Hell, it looked smaller than the building where the model was being shown. WTF?!
Vega's role in the story felt like it was going to have a bit more meat to it, but she was just hovering around like Jensen's PA. Kinda thought she had some hidden angle but, nope, she just decloaks in, gives an update, cloaks out and then does some admin stuff...somewhere. She's supposed to be a pilot but we never see her flying. Was she meant to save you from GARM? Chikane turned up just fine, so...what was the point? Might as well have brought Pritchard back and not just for the hamfisted DLC.
The final fight (the 'only' boss fight, mind you) with Marchenko was comically anticlimactic. Sneak upstairs, punch out the grating in the room up there and sit on the ledge just beyond. Snipe to your heart's content, he is now your bitch. Didn't die once on this guy. The scene right after you beat him was so quick I thought I had skipped it by accident. Wrong, that's exactly how it plays out. As Jensen would say, I didn't ask for this!
The Divali's. When I play Deus Ex I explore first, 'then' I do the missions. This means going to all the places you 'aren't meant to go to' which, in this case, meant gang territory. It felt like there should have been objectives to deal directly with Otar and Nikoladze but, hilariously, the only contact I made with either was down the barrel of my tranq rifle from 20 feet or more away. Because of this, I have no idea if they even have mission arcs. In fact, where Nikoladze is concerned, after tranqing his ass through the slats of the grill at the base of his office door, the next thing I know, I'm back at the conspiracy chart in TF29 being told by the guy nearby that they found his body in a wheat field somewhere in the Czech countryside. Hahahaha, seriously? So, that was the end of that, I guess! Otar, on the other hand was doing just fine and took over the Divali's, so I welcomed him into his new role with another helping of barbiturates to the cranium. Gameplay like this defines the Deus Ex experience for me and is integral to what makes this game tick but, at the same time, the Divali's were made out to be this fearsome organization, yet I comprehensively danced my merry augmented jig around their oblivious natural asses which took out all of the menace they supposedly had. Veterans of this series can dominate the enemy AI with little trouble, so either the AI needs to improve, or the enemy needs to have better gear. Not sure how to fix a problem like this, but at least I had fun!
Vaclav Koller's role is also tied up with the Divali's and there are some things I'd like to add here, too. This guy was cool, but why wasn't I able to tell him his friend/patient was lying dead in the sewer not 20 feet from his basement exit? In fact, after the library burned down (probably because Otar lived and Nikoladze died in my playthrough), the only way you can get into the basement is via the sewer tunnel where the body was. Which means, of course, that there's 'no way' Vaclav could have missed the body! He's just letting this guy rot in full view! What is this? Some kind of signal to trespassers? Damn son, did you augment some ice into them veins! Beyond that, the 'Otar lives' story arc makes it look like you might have to follow up on Vaclav to make sure he's safe, but nothing ever came of it. Was there a mission I missed? He didn't even appear in the final scene. Kinda wanted to see how this guy's story played out.
The Palisade Bank ended up being a similar experience to the Divali syndicate. I entered in through the vaults via a ventilation duct and was immediately greeted with the automated security. The ensuing battle would have woken the dead, but when I stepped out into the foyer I was greeted with a hale and hearty 'how do you do' by the nearest security guard. Bang up job, chaps. Further sleuthing took me to the upper levels and, despite triggering the alarm 'multiple times' again, the guards would eventually settle back into their routines, burned out chassis of various security droids strewn about the halls and the increasingly dwindling number of personnel be damned. Elsewhere, the plot surrounding the two CEO's never really got going and I never once saw them. Oh, they mentioned the 'security issues' in emails after I'd torn through the place the first time but, just like with the Divali's, by the second and then 'third' time I'd been through the place I felt kinda bad for them, like maybe I should leave them a conciliatory bottle of...wait, let me check my bottomless inventory of drinks I'm carrying. I felt like a travelling bar room, I was so overladen with liquor. Quick aside, folks, but hands up if you didn't crack a smile just once knowing that, in every scene when Jensen graveled out his latest thought-piece on society's ills, he had on his person more drink he could ply than was being served at the Irish Stool. Developers, program drink as something you have on the spot, not something you lug around; it just ends up being really silly. The icing on the cake came when I found the body of an employee behind one of the vending machines on the restricted executive floor. The emails at the bank revealed this guy was getting too close to the nefarious and shady goings-on at the bank, so they'd offed him and stuffed his body (with no real effort to disguise it, by the way) into this cafeteria corner. It was kind of sad, really. Hope there weren't any visiting major company directors or politicians passing by any time soon, guys! In any case, I decided to take them up on the challenge and, with all the guards taken care of, dragged this fella's body all the way to the main entrance, dumped his carcass in front of the meet-and-greet dude and a visiting client. Nothing. No 'Panic' state. No fleeing. No alarms and no surprises? Please.
Between this and the Divali areas, Mankind Divided's most intriguing plot feature (i.e. seeing Prague develop through the escalating crisis with repeat visits) is also revealed to be a major detriment due, inherently, to how these games have always been played; what I would define as the 'Let's see what I can break' play style! Locking the player out of accessing restricted areas would be anathema to what makes Deus Ex, but this issue needs addressing going forward as it can quickly reduce what should be a brooding tale on human rights into a laugh riot; though that too is an essential part of the experience, I would say. Augmento, augmato!
The last, and maybe biggest issue, was at the core of the plot, best embodied (pun intended) in Chikane's character. Chikane has no love for the augmented but was, himself, at one point augmented. His 'decision' to remove his augments creates plot holes directly related to all the strife the enhanced people face, namely, if he could 'choose' to have his enhancements taken away why not everyone else? Why would anyone entertain the idea of going to the ghetto city of Golem to be met with a guaranteed slow death if all they had to do was get a surgery to revert to a 'natural' state (as the game terms it)? Why build Golem, Rabi'ah or any building or city when a relatively quick surgery would be clearly cheaper? If the issue is about having too many disabled people following these surgeries then either have them working on a project at Golem or Rabi'ah if they won't undergo surgery thereby paying their own way, otherwise improve social care to incentivise the change (don't laugh, this is in Europe, remember). To counter these points, I readily acknowledge that some of the enhancements are fitted directly into the brain, so removal would possibly put the patient at risk but even there we have a problem. Why did Marchenko have a bomb fitted in his head? The emails you collect suggest it's so he won't lose his nerve, but then you see Marchenko and the man is a walking tank and he's already encouraged (and likely provided supplies to) Stanek, from the Church of the Machine God, to conduct the bombing campaign. Clearly Marchenko has committed himself to the task of fighting back against the police state so why would such an imposing man, with blood already on his hands, wimp out like this? It's not like any of his soldiers needed coercing! There's also something to be said of the fact that I had overheard a conversation somewhere in Prague that the acts of violence, or over zealous policing against the augs were acts of racism. No! No, they definitely are not! What we have here are people who, by and large, opted in and can, objectively, reverse their augmentations. This is, at it's very worst, bigotry derived from a gamble that, unfortunately, didn't pay off. Either get an eye patch, peg leg and parrot...or go to Golem. The choice should be straightforward.
Some other loose ends include Singh's plotline with the Jinn. What the hell was that all about, anyway? Can we go check up on him? There's literally no mention of him at the end. I'm seriously worried about the guy! Next up is Eliza Cassan; the real one you liberate. She blows up some cars in the red-light district (killing cops in my no-kill run, thank you very much, thereby forcing a reload to deal with them humanely), so she clearly knows how to get things done when she wants to. When the end scene plays out and evil Eliza at Picus recounts your main exploits, I was fully expecting good Eliza to appear behind her and shank her digitized ass, or interrupt her broadcast or, you know, anything? Sigh, another let down. Meanwhile, the conspiracy chart at TF29 also mentions some biker gang. I have literally no idea why though because at no point did I see a biker, or even a bike for that matter. A Chekhov's bike in the Czech Republic, if you will.
At this point it sounds like I'm hating on the game, but when it was good it was great. Fun, funny, and engaging, the game looks just g-damn beautiful and the music is on point, which is why it's so disappointing to think it could have been so much more and felt like a lesser game compared to Human Revolution. With the direction the series might be taking, based on the articles I've read on this site, I'm kinda worried there will be a reboot rather than following the loose plot threads to a satisfying conclusion, chief among which is whether or not Janus's identity will ever be revealed. Few games can elicit a wall of text from me, but for a series as notoriously intricate as Deus Ex it's the only way I could do it justice. Such a shame overall. God, I hope they get it right next time. Don't let this series die. Please!