Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Reviews

[divider]CONCLUSION[/divider]As a huge Deus Ex fan, with Human Revolution being one of my personal favourites for the previous generation, it’s easy to look at Mankind Divided as a bit of a disappointment, as it falters in many aspects and lacks substantial improvements in other areas that previous games failed in. However, Mankind Divided is still an interesting exploration in sci-fi themes, with a solid narrative and some incredibly refined gameplay mechanics backing it up.

Mankind Divided hasn't lost the soul of a Deus Ex game, but it doesn't hit the heights it's reaching for.

“Deus Ex: Mankind Divided delivers on the franchise's classic cocktail of open-ended, action-stealth gameplay.”

Since it's debut in 2000, the Deus Ex franchise has wowed and enraptured cyberpunk fans everywhere with its sprawling universe where the actions and choices of the player can change the course of the world and the story in equal measure. Mankind Divided continues the story of the series' third installment, Human Revolution, but does it light the way to a better tomorrow, or is it just a crazy pipe-dream for people who attach too much importance to triangles?

Action!Jensen didn't ask for a sequel. He also didn't ask to be a basketball star/super agent/whiskey lover. What he did ask for was that fangirls back off and take a number.

It's been exactly five years since we left Adam Jensen in the Panchaea Arctic base, stopping the unfortunate Augmented Incident in 2027. Only two years passed for him, though, and the political climate in 2029 is at a crossroads with pro and anti-Augmented factions fighting against each other.

A mechanically solid game with some fantastic level design that sadly delivers a narrative that is ho-hum at best.

Joe reviews the hotly anticipated sequel to the 2011 hit game.

Breach mode is to put in the simplest way possible a time attack version of the main game, with smaller stages and more confined and less beautiful locales. Most of the core gameplay from the main mode remains here though it is locked beneath what is to me a questionable system. The upgrade system of the mode takes the form of booster packs. These packs contain everything from weaponry and consumables, to new praxis kits or mission modifiers. In both the main game and breach mode SE has added micro-transactions into it. This is only for those who want to use money to get an edge of course as the game is perfectly fine without once dipping into those microtransactions. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is an excellent sequel to Human Revolution and one that any fan of stealth games should buy. 8.5/10

Deus Ex: A Videogame Divided

All that being said, all that negativity over Deus Ex: Mankind Divided‘s also-ran attitude, I still had a good time, and Mankind Divided isn’t a bad game. It’s a very large, stand-alone expansion pack for Human Revolution that has no impact on the world and offers no reward for your time invested beyond the fun you can have punching NPCs in the face at the end of a side mission just because they dared to question your actions. It’s a dull, gruff, disinterested, robotic sequel that slips into the persona of its main character like a synthetic arm into a well-fitted trenchcoat.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is the newest addition to the Deus Ex universe. The year is 2029 and mechanically augmented humans have become segregated from their “natural” counterparts as a result of the global killing spree (known as the Aug incident) initiated by a maniacal purist 2 years prior.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is exactly what a sequel should be: an improvement on everything the first game established while giving the player much more to play with.

It’s been five years since Deus Ex: Human Revolution reintroduced the world to interpol agent, Adam Jensen. Now, with Mankind Divided, Eidos Montreal hopes to set a new standard for its freeform stealth action RPG. Did they succeed? We sent Chris in to find out!

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided improves many of the issues that appeared in the previous game and offers players a large amount of freedom to tackle the game’s enjoyable but limited storyline.

A slightly weak narrative can't obscure how compelling and exciting Mankind Divided's is to play. Here, the best stories are those you make yourself through emergent gameplay.

She’s a bit rough around the edges on the technical side, but it’s that classic Deus Ex action that you can’t really find anywhere else.

Breach is also where the monster that is micro-transactions rears its ugly head. You acquire better gear through booster packs and you can either buy those with in-game credits or through real world money. I played a good chunk of Breach and never felt tempted to drop any money for a booster pack because I didn’t focus too hard on the leaderboard aspect, but for those players who will take the mode more seriously I can definitely see them getting seduced by it. If you want any sort of shot at competing on the leaderboards you’re going to need the best items and to do that you’re going to need to open a lot of booster packs. Breach can be fun if you’re interested in a distraction from the main game, but expect to hit that paywall if you decide to climb those leaderboards.

An impressively complex action role-player, where every problem has multiple solutions, but it’s not always quite as smart as it thinks it is.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided doesn’t succeed in making me care about the plight of humans and augs, but it still pulled me into its compelling cloak-and-dagger world where people in capes can turn invisible and shoot balls of lightning out of their arm. Oh, and your aug doctor looks just like Prince, so it’s in the running for GOTY.

Aside from the smaller-feeling plot, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided improves upon its excellent predecessor in every other way. Its impeccably designed environments are flush with possibility, remaining completely coherent while supporting a wide variety of routes and character builds, and Jensen’s prodigious new feats of techno-wizardry add new dimension to both combat and exploration. Mankind Divided never stopped challenging me or rewarding my curiosity, which pushed me to thoroughly explore its beautiful, ruined world while carefully weighing my decisions along the way.

The complex and engrossing world of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is one that sinks its teeth into you right from the beginning, and as you journey through it you never want it to let go. We had to wait awhile for it to finally arrive, but our patience was rewarded with a definite game of the year contender.

If I could say I made one mistake going into Deus Ex: Mankind Divided it’s that I came in with expectations. I replayed Deus Ex: Human Revolution over the last couple weeks in anticipation and assumed that Mankind Divided would come in and eclipse its little brother. It pains me to say that not only did Mankind Divided not eclipse Human Revolution, it actually fell short by a long shot. Plagued with glitches and questionable design choices they came so frequently that I started to question which was which. Is this a screw-up or did they do this on purpose? Not a question any developer wants a player asking of their game and not what I was hoping for from Square Enix and Eidos.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is an amazing game and a worthy fourth entry in arguably the best videogame series of all time. It took me 30 hours to finish it and I loved all of it. While Deus Ex fans might be a little disappointed that there’s only one city hub, concentrating on Prague has allowed Eidos Montreal to create one of the most detailed, believable, and well designed locations in videogames, one that rewards exploration every time. The stealth and combat sides have been buffed and pol...

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided takes you to a dark, beautiful world of cyborg agents, conspiracies and social turmoil.

I imagine the Internet will be abuzz with discussion on the “Mechanical Apartheid” issue, debating whether it was offensive, or if Eidos Montreal did enough to warrant the comparison, but aside from that, there is a very solid effort here. The new augments combined with better level design makes exploration more satisfying, and the little upgrades to hacking make that whole system more tense. While it’s over a little too soon, if you enjoyed Human Revolution, there is a lot to like here.

Give Me Deus Ex.

At a time when the world is becoming more and more fractured on a socio-political level, and the message from the media’s message is often skewed thanks to third-party interests *cough* Rupert Murdoch *cough* Deus Ex: Mankind Divided’s message of segregation and fragility hits home just that little harder. Its messaging is delivered with about as much subtlety as trying to crack a nut with a sledgehammer, but, you know what, I kind of like that about the game. It does away with subtlety a...

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is a testament to phenomenal world design and player freedom – matched with intense customization with impressive gameplay consequences, the majority of the game feels entirely personalized to your gameplay style. Despite the fact Jensen and his overarching story line are less engaging than the gameplay and world itself, there is an irresistible amount of fun to had in Mankind Divided.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is captivating from start to finish, giving players more freedom to make their own choices. Controls are sublime, whether you’re massacring the enemy or avoiding them; with enough tools to make both viable options. The take on a futuristic Prague is unsettling, yet hugely immersive, together with some interesting social commentary. It’s been a long time coming, but Mankind Divided was worth the five year wait.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is futuristic science fiction, but the message it delivers stems from today’s societal problems. Police shoot unarmed innocents, extremist groups unleash acts of terror, and communities are torn apart by segregation. The story explores these issues thoroughly and makes a clear statement about the threat posed by totalitarianism, but the delivery is often heavy-handed and overstated. In establishing its vision of an oppressed world, the player is treated like a hard drive for extensive downloads of backstory and lore – so much so that I had to make notes just to keep track of all of the shadow organizations, acronyms, and shady government officials. The game made me think about my world, which is clearly the intent, but I never felt a strong connection to the game or the role protagonist Adam Jensen plays within it. Eidos Montreal attempts to disguise hot-button issues as speculative fiction, but sacrifices an interesting story to hammer home its messaging. Even Jensen is off his game, often appearing so gloomy and one-note in tone that he makes RoboCop seem like the life of the party. When we first meet Jensen, he’s on assignment in Dubai, tracking an arms dealer through an unfinished highrise hotel. This mission displays the promise of Deus Ex’s gameplay, deftly mixing stealth with hacking and the occasional exchange of gunfire. This mission is paced nicely and delivers true excitement, culminating in the surprise assault by a new terrorist cell, each of its soldiers adorned in stylish gold masks and augmented enhancements. Player choice (which is woven into the entire narrative arc with plenty of difficult “no-win” moments) comes into play here, as does a timed event that applies unexpected pressure to the gameplay, making me switch from stealth to run-and-gun to reach my objective in time. It’s a hell of an introductory sequence, but the game never finds that pulse again, and instead becomes formulaic.

Do you like to do things by the book, or prefer to go rogue? Kick down the door, shoot first and ask questions later, or sneak in and get out without anyone knowing you were even there?