I feel like I should qualify this review by first stating that I'm a massive fanboy of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I recognize that that game has some flaws but the ambiance is second to none, the stealth gameplay is satisfying, and the way the plot drives you forward to its conclusion makes you loath to put it down. It's one of the few games in which I've gotten 100% of its Steam achievements. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is one of the best games of the 2010s in my own humble opinion.
This game just fails to live up to pretty much every level set by the previous game.
The gameplay is returned more or less unchanged from the first game. The only real difference is that Jensen is given several new tools to use, justified by some cheesy in-plot explanation as someone having altered his augmentations while he was comatose after the first game. The problem here is that not enough has changed from the first game. And while that doesn't seem like much of a problem given how much I enjoyed Human Revolution, it's starting to feel quite dated and lacks any further development over the past 5 years.
I'll approach this mostly from a stealth angle since that's how I play the game.
The most glaring issue here is that there's a core problem with the energy system that regulates your use of augments. Jensen has some awesome tools to use to maneuver around the environment undetected, but the problem is how overpowered these tools are. To solve the issue of being an absolute god, the devs chose to reign these in by using the same battery meter from the first, which is replenished by consumables when it gets low. This is a problem simply because you end up playing the game without ever using them, instead choosing to save them for when you really need them. Now that's not a problem by itself, but it is when you realize you're sneaking through entire areas trial-and-error and never actually using the majority of your augmentations. This was a weakness in Human Revolution, and it was greatly disappointing not to see it rectified in this game. There has to be a better way to balance these powers than resorting to consumables. Perhaps a smaller battery meter that recharges more slowly? The battery meter refueled by consumables feels archaic and clumsy in a game that features otherwise interesting stealth puzzles to overcome.
And on top of that, the new augments present aren't actually all that useful. Aside from remote hacking I never used any of them, instead relying on the vanilla mods from Human Revolution. This could have been dealt with by having a new playable character, or a second one like the route Dishonored 2 went. Anything would have been more interesting than the same exact skillset from Human Revolution with the addition of a half-dozen augmentations that aren't even particularly useful. The fact that Jensen is back reeks of the studio's unwillingness to take a risk, or perhaps it was dictated to them by their publisher that coverboy Adam Jensen needed to be present in the game. I suppose we'll never know. But a new protagonist or at least some kind of change to keep things fresh would have added a lot more flavor to the now-stale gameplay present here.
The gameplay is returned more or less unchanged from the first game. The only real difference is that Jensen is given several new tools to use, justified by some cheesy in-plot explanation as someone having altered his augmentations while he was comatose after the first game. The problem here is that not enough has changed from the first game. And while that doesn't seem like much of a problem given how much I enjoyed Human Revolution, it's starting to feel quite dated and lacks any further development over the past 5 years.
I'll approach this mostly from a stealth angle since that's how I play the game.
And on top of that, the new augments present aren't actually all that useful. Aside from remote hacking I never used any of them, instead relying on the vanilla mods from Human Revolution. This could have been dealt with by having a new playable character, or a second one like the route Dishonored 2 went. Anything would have been more interesting than the same exact skillset from Human Revolution with the addition of a half-dozen augmentations that aren't even particularly useful. The fact that Jensen is back reeks of the studio's unwillingness to take a risk, or perhaps it was dictated to them by their publisher that coverboy Adam Jensen needed to be present in the game. I suppose we'll never know. But a new protagonist or at least some kind of change to keep things fresh would have added a lot more flavor to the now-stale gameplay present here.
Ambiance was something that Human Revolution did amazingly well. There were complaints about the gold filter but I really thought it added to the game's ambiance and I never had a problem with it. On top of that, the Michael McCann's absolutely mind-blowing score changed the entire feel of the game and was arguably the single best part of it. Mankind Divided instead goes for a more realistic feel, and the score, while at times comes close to the high bar set in Human Revolution, is far more inconsistent and settles for more subtle, less noticeable score. I didn't feel nearly as blown away by the sense that I was in a different world in Mankind Divided that I did when I played through Human Revolution, and for me that was a real disappointment.
Don't get me wrong; the world in Mankind Divided is good. Very good, in fact. The environmental design and level design is the only aspect of this game aside from its graphical prowess that is clearly better than Human Revolution. But I really missed the blatant, heavy-handedness of Human Revolution's ambiance in this title. In going for more realism they lost some of the weight of Human Revolution's atmosphere. It's now less cyberpunk-comic-book, more hard-science-fiction-thriller. I suppose it depends on what you prefer, but I was disappointed. I'm typically more a fan of subtlety, but I loved the chronically overdone atmosphere that Human Revolution featured.
All of these flaws might be passable if only to experience what this game does well: Interesting, well crafted environments, excellent level design, great side quest writing, solid voice acting. But this game, unfortunately, runs like absolute garbage.
I have zero issues running most games in 1440p at 60 fps, however this title barely broke 40 fps in most places with low to medium settings. Turning off SLI actually improved my framerate by 5 fps or so. Not a great sign. Even after turning off SLI and running it on my 1080p monitor I still experienced frame drops to around 50 fps on medium settings. This is simply unacceptable, and had I known the majority of the game ran like this then I'd have refunded it within 2 hours. But, interestingly enough, the entire first area runs quite well and it's only once you get to Prague that the problems start.
Interesting how games are shipping with more polished early areas ever since Valve adopted its refund policy. Quite interesting. And infuriating.
There are also several graphical and physics bugs present, and the game didn't even ship with DX12 (though it was later patched in and is now active). This is a title that clearly needed a few more months of polish, but with Square Enix's dumpster-tier publisher reputation it's not a surprise that it was forced out early. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if this is actually half of the game and the developers at Eidos actually had a full, satisfying plot written but were told to cut it in half so Square Enix could double their profits with two releases rather than one. This is purely speculation, but I surely won't be purchasing Mankind Divided's inevitable sequel until it's well below a $30 price tag. Fool me once...
This is a bad port and a disappointing game. Even as a fervent Human Revolution fanboy I can't recommend purchasing this title at full price. Wait until it gets under $30 and take a shot at it. Just make sure you go in with tempered expectations.
⭐⭐
Playtime: 54 hours
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