Game is pretty good, but like the other AC games, not challenging at the least.
My suspicion got the better of me and I got my hands on Human Revolution. I am still forming my opinion on the game. I've played it for several hours but only for 2 actual missions (game so far is very much divided into a mission - peacetime schism. It's not that the out-of-mission content is all that sprawling, it's just a small hub world with some shops and NPCs, but I found way to entertain myself there for long. Maybe it's the open ended feeling of the place (you can aug yourself to increase your mobility afterall) or maybe it's the attention to detail in the world design. The world and art design is very well realized, and the hub world seems to serve as a sort microcosmic representation of this. I also personally suck in the atmosphere there like a sponge, but that's probably just due to my penchant for anything cozy. The feeling of roaming in a sleepy, or maybe rather, dead, town while having larger matters to attend to later is really well done, and the hub area communicates at least to me a very unique feeling of "home".
In terms of the actual gameplay, at first I was underwhelmed. I dabbled in stealth at the beginning, but realized, as I had dreaded, that going the stealth route would end with the game as an inferior alternative to something like Splinter Cell. So I went a little abstract and decided to try to aug myself down a mobility path, increasing running and jumping skills as much as possible. So far this has resulted in augs for sprinting faster, jumping higher, and landing safely from all heights. Have they been useful yet? Haven't had much time to experiment. I've managed to get out of one situation of being spotted by bolting the heck out of there, jumping unto some containers and then sprinting and jumping behind a fence into safety. I am playing on Hard. Since the game employs stealth mechanics, this meant that the enemies lost sight of me. Oh, and I also managed to avoid death from one clumsy fall from a huge staircase. This did land me right in front of some guards, but they apparently had some sort of riveting conversation going between each other. I chose the mobility route generally out of desperation. I didn't want a pure stealth route for reasons mentioned earlier, and I didn't want to go guns blazing due to regenerating health. Deus Ex has, if you go the assault route, the worst health system yet. Health regenerates at a medium pace, regardless of augs. Since there is a cover system in place, the patient guy still just has to wait. Only much longer.
The game does handle non-combat choices well. So far, my way of dealing with situations and whether or not to go lethal has felt natural and not like a button I've pressed at a menu somewhere. See, I wanted to go for the social gameplay pillar, but decided not to because I thought the corresponding aug amounted to manipulation. That's how much weight I felt the game gave these questions. It goes as well for optional objectives. In games like Mass Effect, I always felt that I would be rewarded for completing optionals anyway.
It's very important to realize for the gameplay of this title that it is better than the sum of it's parts. This phrase is thrown around a lot, but I actually think it applies for once. The charm of the gameplay is NOT a feeling of freedom. In something like Fallout, it's exhilarating to go "what if" and think of how you want to RP on your next playthrough. In Deus Ex, you are more of a renaissance man. You don't go one specific route, you go all of them. Yet you still specialize to a certain extent. This balance must have been impossible to get right. See, what's so fun about this game, what lifts it above it's lackluster stealth and shooting mechanics, is that you go can switch between these paths on the go. You basically succeed by being crafty, by using all the tools instead of just one of them. You sneak up on that sniper and take him out, then you lift that container with your strength-aug to get through to the vent where you will climb downstairs, sneak past the guards, jump up to a sweet spot and take them down swiftly with your assault rifle. A good example of how this manifests is how stealth is nearly always the best starting point for handling a situation. The charm of the game is that you transition to a new style once the stealth has served it's purpose. You don't as much choose what you can do as what you can't. You have to leave a few holes in your character stats, and your challenge is to avoid these being exploited by the enemy.
In leaving, a small flaw: I've managed to see the face of a sort of significant early game swat-leader plastered on, among other things, a hobo and a civilian. A bit more faces should have been modeled ^^ I am really liking certain characters though, despite, or maybe because, personalities aren't super strong and immediately obvious. In fact, this is lack of overkill is probably the games biggest asset. Not all personalities are immediately obvious, neither are all the ways of defeating an enemy, or make use of augs. A shame the same can't be said of the plot exposition.
Edit: Wow, I managed to generate a wall of text. I'm proud of myself. I'm usually as liberal with my line shifts as Robotnik is with kidnapping animals.
