Deus Ex Mankind Divided - Game Review

Deus Ex Mankind Divided, the most recent in a series that began with, in my opinion, one of the best games ever made. How does this measure up?

I guess this game will really just be compared to its predecessor Deus Ex Human Revolution, mainly because they don't seemed to have changed one thing. 

You pick up pretty soon after things went very south in the Deus Ex world, completely ignoring the multiple choice ending of Human Revolution, it assumes we all chose to cause "Aug" (augmented people) related chaos and so we now deal with the aftermath. 

Aug's are now highly feared second class citizens, queue the many lazy metaphors about today's many social and economic issues. This concept is a rather odd one, I assume that a lot of Aug's didn't necessarily choose to be "upgraded" and that most people who had lost an arm or leg or more would probably opt for a fully functional robotic prosthetic rather than just leave it for the sake of being a "pure" human. 

Anyway, all of the normal's fear Aug's now because they might at any time switch to mindless bionic zombies again, I guess they might have a point there... 

Human Revolution had many issues, such as clunky combat, poor voice acting and far too many cut scenes. Mankind Divided has fixed exactly none of them, in fact some of these issues seem worse. Jensen is as bland as ever, did the augmentations stop his face or voice from showing any sign of human emotion? No wonder people are scared when they are being interrogated by a walking man shaped tank channelling the personality of Microsoft Sam.

As before, it feels like the stealth non-lethal option is the best way to rack up points and it does reward you slightly more but it also makes the game extremely slow and frustratingly hard. So I have employed my Hitman tactics, which consist of doing everything right up until someone sees me and then massacring my way to the end of the mission.  

The game-play is still pretty much identical but Jensen has been date raped and loaded with a whole new bunch of experimental gear, meaning you have exactly the same stuff with a few added extra's. Like Human Revolution, a lot of these perks are a complete waste of time and so quite soon into the game you have everything you need.

As many people have commented on, the game is painfully short and the story line is less than rewarding. For this reason I can only think of Mankind Divided as an expansion pack to Human Revolution and I will continue to wait for an actual sequel to come out.

Summarise!

If you feel like playing Human Revolution but don't have your 360 or PS3 to hand, this will definitely satisfy that craving, but if your looking for a whole new game in the Deus Ex universe to digest, I'd keep waiting.  

2/5 Slices