Show Spoiler Ooooooooh...
I finished MD a few days ago and yes, the gameplay, the graphics, UI, art direction and general usability of the game have been vastly improved and overhauled. The Prague hub is amazing and very immersive.
HOWEVER.
Oh my gawd the story. People play Deus Ex games for the choices and the fascinating stories, and this game gives you a couple of very interesting choices to pick from, including the end which can have a profound impact on how it turns out, however, the narrative itself is incredibly lack-lustre.
I won't spoil anything for those who haven't played it. Basically, the story has two problems: it ends so very fast and abruptly that as soon as you are really getting into it the game finishes with a very down beaten final boss. Secondly, the narrative is not suitable to a Deus Ex game. Sure they've made games with terrorists in them before, but if you're going to put them in, don't make the game about following leads and revealing who is behind these "escalating attacks". it's one of them hardest, most contemporary and close to the bone things you could write about. Making it interesting is one, keeping it that way whilst building tension and not making it seem to real is another. I often felt the game substituted story with tension, relying on you being so caught up in the moment as to miss the gaping plot hole.
To address the second point more closely, what goes on in a Deus Ex game? Corporate conspiracy, God delusions, strange experimental weapons and technology, transhumanism, secret societies and complex characters. Mankind Divided either skips or poorly touches all of these. It felt more like an international police simulator, and whilst that's technically what you are, it doesn't make for a good experience.
The game left a lot of questions and although HR left some, I got a feeling of closure, of accomplishment. The story was long enough, well paced and had fantastic revelations. This game starts confused but well, and by the time you start really getting into it, unravelling the mystery, it ends before you get real questions. I was left baffled and wanted to know more. What was the significance of Tarvos if you read the emails that disclose they are simply a rebranding of Belltower? Who are the Golden soldiers, where do they come from and how long have they been there? What happened to the Illuminati after the incident? When did Orlov experiment on you? it felt like these were left unanswered to create wonder, but they only made me wonder if the writers were lazy.
The music was ok, not a patch on HR but some tracks were pretty good.
The locations were actually pretty poor. The Prague hub was excellent in all ways, but visiting it three times? And the others could have been more interesting. The game presented us with loads of cool places to go: Rab'iah, Alaska, San Francisco Versalife lab. All of these places could have extended the story a bit more... but no. Deus Ex 1 had an ocean lab and you got to go to Area 51. HR had Hengsha the two-tiered city and the Panchaea installation. I was really hoping for something equally cyberpunk and sci-fi, and I was very much dissapointed.
The characters voice wise were well acted, Elias Toufexis really had the measure of Jensen and the side characters were consistent throughout. But the relationships were not well developed. I had hoped MacReady to be the next Pritchard, and turns out he's barely in it at all. Miller was decent but he spends too much time berating you, at least Sarif used you as his puppet in a vaguely subtle way. Vega wasn't bad but the interactions with her and Jensen were cold and business-like, not making her easy to get on with. And the Illuminati... what a bunch of wet sods. I mean come on, no one could say any of them were threatening in the slightest, they were doing their very best to ensure their super-duper plan had the highest chance of failing. And did Morgan Everett suddenly become black? Though tbh I kind of liked that guy's voice acting so suits me. The only decent one was Bob Page, suprise suprise, his menacing Spacey-like accent and his ruthless ideals and no-nonsense attitude made him seem competent.
Ugh.
All in all, great mechanics, art style, graphics, overhauled augmentations, fantastic sound all around, but the story itself, whilst not bad by simple fact of being terribly written, was full of questions, plot holes, monotonous characters and locations and ended as soon as it got going. The way the terrorists were introduced made no sense and the plot became needlessly ambiguous when all the answers lay in incredibly obvious emails.In conclusion: Buy HR, enjoy a much more immersive if slightly clankier experience, then decide if you want more. And wait for the price to go down.
generally agree.
don't read if you don't want even the slightest spoiler. also there is a scene in like mid credit. WAIT FOR IT!
spoiler free: 25hrs in game - missed many side missions and just finished the game. most def going back soon.
Show Spoiler when i finished HR, i felt... "wow". I just finished MD and I'm like "that's it?" and it deliberately leave many questions unanswered because, well, 1. Jensen's story goes on and it kinda won't make sense if he tackles entirety of the fucking HUGE conspiracy he finds during the course of the game. Second is that the game is setting up for a sequel...
former point is a valid "excuse" but they both work against the story. The worst part is that these are prequels as far as i know - in original Deus Ex, there are characters that are in HR and MD. So that is my another gripe... It is clear that they are gearing up for another Jensen story...but how far can you go with prequels? especially in a game where story is the biggest part?
Some great side missions but main story ends too quick.
They also really need to fix lip syncing.
I disagree about locations though. I really felt Prague and all other environments were excellent. especially the golem city. I am glad that they only had 1 real hub and put everything into it. detroit and hengsha felt really under developed even when the game was released.
all the other things i did not mention, they are good+.
This should not get too much drama to be honest. interest, sure, but this is not too gray of a problem.
whether it was in only fine print or not, it is noggano's fault for not trying to get a passport or raise this issue in the beginning.
the community could've also helped this by trying to raise this issue constructively early on but as far as i know, no one did. i am guilty of this as well; i read milestone 5 and thought "that's cool... how would that work? ooh, we got a game" and nothing else.
Relic also should've notified players more often: this tourney is the first of its kind and obviously, the community was not ready for such big moves. and relic should've accommodated more.