i wrote this on selectbutton about human revolution. it is what i think about it:
It could be worse, and while playing it I get occasional flickers of that exploration excitement. Every few minutes walking around detroit, a particular chord in the music will strike and I'll see the steam rising up from the ground and the people stalking around and suddenly the atmosphere is thick and everything feels like I hoped it would.
Problem is nobody really has anything interesting to say. Every single character, almost without exception, talks exclusively about their binary opinions on 'Augs'. I didn't expect the game to be so completely focused on this aspect of the storyline, which I was never really especially interested in in the original and where it was just one part of a flurry of crazy sci-fi mumbo-jumbo being flung at you.
One of the low points so far was sneaking through Derelict Row, you overhear a couple of gang members rambling on about, of course, the augmentation stuff, but one of them says something like, 'Day-um, motherfucker, if this UN resolution for the Augs gets passed then our shit is fuuucked.'.
Like, just your average criminals in the most impoverished district only have UN resolutions and implications of human modification to talk about.
And it's all anybody has to talk about. The one part of the game that isn't obsessed with this really boring and cheesy debate is a side-quest I found which is about exposing a corrupt cop and I was suddenly more engaged in the game while playing that because everything that was being said, done and seen didn't just happen to relate directly to the insular main plotline of the Sarif corporation. The world felt like it was coming to life a bit.
So, that's a big thing that is missing so far. The voice acting and writing out in the main world is terrible so far, and I wouldn't mind that so much but there is no sense of depth to the world that I was hoping for. It's only the beginning of the game, still, and it could definitely change. The thing is the story just isn't that interesting so far and you can't escape from it even when talking to a drunken hobo down a dark alley. He's yammering on about some augmentation shit, too. Everyone is.
I read in one article something about the 'bipolar ridiculous/serious' tone of the first Deus Ex and that's another thing that is definitely missing. There is a vague sense of humour to the game, but it's really basic and bland. Again, that's because of how shallow the game world seems so far, and also just because the writing isn't very good. This game wants to be really cool, but in a mainstream way that a lot of other games want to be cool. The music is up and down, sometimes it gets a little hectic and I'm into it, but most of the time it's just a low synth drone with occasional high notes sprinkled over the top I guess because having cool and wacky music like the original would seem goofy but heck that was part of what was so good about the original game, it just went all out. This game could use some of that, because it isn't even very good at maintaining that oppressive atmosphere it's striving for. I'll be into it one second then I'll see some Hobo (with the same voice actor and character model as the doctor down the street) spray painting 'FIGHT THE POWER' or 'SARIF PUPPETS' on the wall and it all just comes tumbling down: It's just a silly game. There's nothing to worry about.
I've rolled my eyes kind of a lot while playing. The world is trying to be dark and dangerous, and mysterious, but it's like playing the image of that kind of world as imagined by someone who only has a Christopher Nolan movie and forum posts about how good Deus Ex 1 was to draw inspiration from. There isn't that sense of intelligence behind the world, like all of this connects up in ways you haven't figured out yet, like you could go and read real world books about this crazy shit and it would all fit in with the game. Human Revolution puts up a good front, but if you start trying to dive in - so far, at least - you'll smack the bottom face first.
Like I said though, there are the moments. Right now it feels like I'm the one putting more into those moments than the game, imagining what secrets the city streets might have held. That'll do for a decent game to play, but none of this feels special just yet. I'd hope that in the full game, and in the other locations you eventually get to visit, the world opens out a bit more thematically, because this aug bullshit just isn't cutting it for me.
Gameplay is fine, not so bothered about that. I've been playing completely stealthy so far and it's challenging and tense, and all of that. All good.