Publisher: Square Enix I’ve logged 60 hours on Deus Ex: Human Revolution so far, and I’ve enjoyed every second. It’s the most engrossing game I’ve played this year. If you have any affection at all for the original Deus Ex, or for Mass Effect, Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid, Thief, or any of their sequels, you need to play this game. Set in the year 2027, Human Revolution is the third entry in the Deus Ex series and serves as a prequel to 2000’s original. You play Adam Jensen, an ex-SWAT turned head of private security for Sarif Industries, designer and manufacturer of cybernetic prosthetics. During the intro, Adam is badly wounded, and David Sarif, the head of the company, saves his life with cybernetic augmentation. This sounds cliché because it is, but the writers put a lot of thought into the possible consequences of human augmentation, from the physical side effects (augmentation rejection and death if you don’t take expensive antirejection drugs for the rest of your life) to the moral quandaries (augmentation can make you stronger, faster, tougher, and smarter, so is it right for employers to favor augs when hiring, especially considering the cost and drug-dependency issues?). Lots of games use cybernetic parts to justify superpowers, and this one does too, but it also handles the material thoughtfully. It probably isn’t the most insightful human drama in terms of cyberpunk lit, but speculative fiction is often more about elaboration on technical premises. Nothing wrong with that. Game play wise, it’s a first-person stealth shooter that shifts into third person when you take cover, which is useful both in firefights and for sneaking. It’s usually very open with how you can tackle its challenges—you can either shoot or sneak and hack your way through the levels, and the story elements almost always offer you choices on how to handle the plot. It’s also got a dialogue system that’s even better than Mass Effect’s, with slightly randomized conversational conflict and well-done expression in the nonplayer characters—getting the response you want is a matter of paying attention to both what they’re saying and how they’re saying it. How you play is influenced by what augmentations you buy—the conceit is that Adam has a bunch of cybernetics in a switched-off state, and as his brain grows new neurons to interface with them, augmentations switch on one by one. It’s neat, and the result is you have a whole page of cybernetic powers to choose from—increased sprinting speed or jump height, lifting heavier objects, negating recoil, invisibility, silent movement, radar updates, enemy tracking, better hacking, internal weaponry, etc. Here’s the game’s major problem: There’s a lot of choice, but many choices are clearly inferior, and some choices are unclearly inferior. The game overwhelmingly rewards you for being a sneaky pacifistic hacker, giving you more experience points for going unseen, knocking people unconscious, and hacking everything in sight. Hacking in particular is a problem because it results in so much XP and loot that it feels necessary. Every time I spent points on my first walkthrough, it was a choice between “a new power that I might have fun with” and “yet another level of hacking or expanded inventory.” And then over the course of the game you fight three bosses who can’t be reasoned with or snuck past, in rooms where nothing can be hacked to turn it to your advantage. I personally don’t mind the boss fights, but they make other people unhappy, and I really do mind being forced to choose between fun upgrade purchases and necessary ones. Problems aside, the game is amazing. It looks amazing, sounds amazing, feels amazing, and plays amazing. Kudos to the designers, and you should go grab it right now. Now now now now now now now. This review is based on an Xbox 360 copy of Deus Ex I bought for myself at Steam.