I will start by saying that I have never played a Deus Ex game before. I mean I knew the series existed before this game came out since spent some time looking at stuff on the wikia. However, I never realized what sort of game the series was until my brother decided to buy this game. However, I quit the game for a long time since I couldn't get past the first boss, but I eventually did pick it up again with a better approach. So, I did beat the game some time ago, and now I think it's time to give you people my thoughts on the game.

Story
Human Revolution serves as a prequel to the first game, and it is clear that this is a prequel due to the augments in the game being mechanical not nano. Anyways, the game's protagonist is Adam Jensen, a former SWAT that serves a head of security at Sarif Industries, a company that makes the controversial augments. Things were going fine for Adam until an attack on Sarif caused him to become gravely injured and later to become heavily augmented. Afterwards Adam travels around and interacts with lame characters to stop a lame conspiracy. In fact, the conspiracy goal didn't seem obvious to me until the last act of the story. Worse, nearly every major character loves to give Adam the run around. However, I did like that one aspect of the narrative, anti-augmentation prejudice. Quite a number of characters will vocalize and later show their disdain for augmentation, in fact there are two factions that are against augmentation (one more than other). It ultimately serves as the most vocal theme of the story and in my mind the best part of the story. But, the otherwise lame story will certainly not be raised by the game’s graphics.

Graphics
First off, I have to discuss my biggest gripe with visuals. What is with all the orange? Pretty much all the lighting in the game is orange. This is something that rather annoys every time I played the game. But the lighting isn’t the only thing that annoys me about the graphics. Characters all have low quality textures, with Adam being perhaps the exception. The animation for each characters seems to feel rather stilted to me, especially when comes to the face region. However, in contrast to character visuals, the environment is actually kind of alright to look at. Now, the graphics are also complicated by the game’s sound design.

Sound
I have to say that the music is actually pretty cool and reminds me a lot of another science fiction video game franchise. The voice acting, for the most part, is solid enough, but some of the delivery from certain characters isn’t solid. I also have to mention how much I dislike Adam Jensen’s voice as it reminds of Christian Bale’s Batman, which was awful. Oh, and the sound effects are also pretty good, but let’s move on to gameplay already.

Gameplay
Human Revolution is a first-person shooter with elements of stealth and rpg. In similar fashion to my experiences with Metal Gear Solid 3, I tried to play the game full Rambo, but I soon found that stealth is the absolutely better option. You do get an array of weapons to use, but these take up space in your inventory, which already occupied by ammo, grenades, and curatives. Oh, and the size of an item determines how much it takes up in the inventory. I did however find myself using different weapons depending on the type of enemy, which is something that I find lacking in some first person shooters. Now, each weapon is upgradable but the upgrades for the most part are the usual fair: more damage, better reload speed, etc. Of course, firearms isn’t the only way to get past your enemies, there is also the use of stealth. Stealth is pretty standard, yet works very well. Additionally, you can do takedowns (either lethal or nonlethal) on unsuspecting enemies. However, the issue with takedowns is that they, besides making noise, force you to watch a little cinematic of the takedown instead of a pure in-game takedown. But, enemy soldiers are not the only thing that will deter Adam’s path. Cameras will alert all guards if they spot you long enough, turrets will shoot you on sight, and mechs will be patrol like soldiers but are more dangerous. But, All of these things can be altered or even controlled by hacking. Hacking involves completing a mini game at computers, which involves selecting different nodes to gain full access to information, machine controls, and credits. However, there are two things that you will deter you when hacking. First, is that it takes times for you to gain access to a node. Second, is that you have a time limit to complete the hack once detected by the system. You can deter these things by quickly activating nodes before the system detects you, and by using different hack tools to either briefly stop the system defense or gain instant access to a node. Hacking will be complete once you use the connecting nodes to reach the yellow spheres. While early level hacks are pretty easy, the later hacks will need quick reaction time, which caused a lot of frustration for me. However, the harder the hack the bigger prize when you're finished with the hack. Now, all of these things I covered can be improved through the augmentation system. Augments are essentially passive skills divided into seven categories: Cranium, Eyes, Arms, Torso, Back, Skin, and Legs. Each category focus on an aspect of gameplay, like skin augments focus on defense. These are extremely helpful in surviving later, though some are necessary to get. Now, augments are unlocked with praxis points, which are singularly granted to you when you fill the experience bar. The experience bar is filled by completing certain actions, such as hacking, defeating enemies, exploration, stealth and completing quests. Now these actions give you a varied amount of points depending on what the action was. Now, completing quests is the fastest way to get the next praxis point since they will cover all other actions plus the reward for completion. However, the quests were rather boring to me, and a few of them would have near impossible to complete if I didn’t get certain augments. Additionally, there is persuasion to gain a lot of experience, but these sequences only happen at certain points during certain quests. Now, persuasion basically means selecting dialogue options to get the opposing character to agree with you. But, these sequences are very easy, as I literally completed two of these sequences by repeating selecting the same dialog option until I won. Now, I said earlier that you shouldn’t go Rambo, well that’s because of the boss battles. Bosses can take a lot of damage and dish out a lot of damage, so make sure to save up ammo and upgrade yourself. Now, to me the boss fights are more flawed than amusing, like one I killed easily by going to a spot where he couldn’t hit me then repeatedly shooting him in the head with my submachine gun and tossing grenades at him. Additionally, there was another boss that I would have been almost impossible for me if I didn’t get a certain augment. Ultimately, the gameplay is very solid even without these gripes I had with it.

Human Revolution is a pretty solid game with its stealth gameplay and upgrade system, but brought down by its visuals, story, and gameplay annoyances. I feel that I would like this game better if the quests were more amusing, bosses were less annoying, and if I wasn’t basically forced to get certain upgrades. Additionally, better lighting and texture along with a better structure story would be a big boost for me. However, despite my gripes with the game, I do recommend this game to those looking for a sci-fi stealth game.

Nice review. I do have to admit that I'm a little puzzled however, as you said almost nothing positive in the entire review, but ended by saying it was a solid game and giving it a 7/10. And the fact that you said it was solid but brought down by it's visuals, story and gameplay (gameplay annoyances), as well as saying that it could benefit from a better story and more enjoyable less annoying boss fights and more, leaving only the sound untouched as a negative.

What I'm saying that overall I saw you mention negative things about the game but no positives, and then say it was a good game, and that left me a little confused. I'm guessing that you liked it and that you simply pointed out the flaws and left the rest up to saying that it was fun despite the flaws. I can get that. And overall, you did a good job here. Also I got a kick out of the title. xD

Eirinn : I think was unsure of how to write this review.