I just entered after Sevchenko's signal to the harvester base. Seems like it's run by Tong, and I see Tracer making a cameo as well in e-mails. He's off to Hong Kong already, though (I think). Why do I get the feeling, that Tong probably killed Sevchenko already? Nvm, don't answer.

Not long to go now, I guess mate. Few hours. Oh and if you have the pirated version, or the Explosive pack, the Tong mission is JUST about to happen.

I think it suffers a bit due to its art direction and general visual aesthetic. The look is simply too clean and sterile for my tastes. Even when the levels are "different" - they retain that kind of look and as such the atmosphere doesn't quite reach the desired level of immersion. It's like the whole world is made of cardboard, plastic, and glass. It just lacks…. mass. NPCs feel the same way. They seem to be made of something other than flesh and bone.

For the stealth approach, there's too much experience to be had. I could have maxed out everything had I bothered to be 100% towards the end. I think the absolute max should probably be around 2/3 augmentations at the very end. Pretty big design flaw, if you ask me.

The energy cell system is not very good, in my opinion. Too many powers rely on having a full cell - and since you only regenerate the first cell, you end up not wanting to go beyond 1 power cell lest you expend resources for no reason. They should have just used a single larger energy bar ala Deus Ex - and then let it regenerate very slowly, or something like that. Some powers could stand to be free, like walking silently and looking through walls. The "realism" of needing energy doesn't outweigh the inconvenience of constantly activating them and reserving a cell for the vital take-down power.

The story had some pretty good points and ideas, but the characters weren't engaging. They lacked emotional punch and underpinning - and the whole thing came off as somewhat too distant and "functional". The death of the pilot should have been a very moving moment, but it did absolutely nothing for me.

It was great with all those terminals to hack, but the e-mails were somewhat dry and uninteresting. One of the reasons Bioshock/System Shock work so well in this regard, is because of the voice acting I suppose, which was out of the question for this. But I still think they could have made the entries more interesting and engaging. The first stuff in the Sarif building with the smuggling operation was very good. There should have been more of that kind of thing.

The game needed a third hub. The last third of the game should have happened in a third city - and I think it should have been possible to backtrack to the other hubs at will. Either that, or it should just have been one huge single city instead. I didn't like getting attached to Detroit and then having to abandon my apartment, and Hengsha lacked a home to place items. They went really far with the open world stuff, and they really should have gone that last step.

Which brings me to the lack of a storage closet. The game is in DESPERATE need of a universal storage closet.

Those are my primary complaints. It may sound negative, but the positives FAR outweigh them. The basic gameplay is incredibly satisfying and well-executed. I can't say enough good stuff about the hacking system, for instance - which is by far the best implementation of a mini-game I've seen. The shooting mechanics worked very well for this type of game, and the enemy AI was a constant challenge on max difficulty level as a stealther. While the story wasn't emotionally engaging, it was definitely mentally stimulating. Plenty of meat on it - and it kept me interested towards the end.

I also think the multiple endings made good sense, and I liked the final battle - which reminded me of the System Shock 2 boss. I chose the Taggart ending, by the way.

You let Marik DIE?

You mean Malik?

Yeah, I was pretty exhausted at that point in the game, and I didn't bother to check if I could save her. Incidentally, it was also the mission where I decided I didn't want to bother going the 100% non-lethal route anymore.

This always happens to me when I play games that I love for the first time. I get so absorbed in playing them "perfectly" that I basically just exhaust my brain and I just give it up at some point. I seem to remember doing the exact same thing in the first Deus Ex.

LOL! Nice catch, sorry - I was going for Faridah at first, but then figured most people wouldn't even know who the heck that was since you pretty much universally refer to her as Malik in the game. Ever do that? Mesh two words together? >_<

... still, you let her die That's cold, man, real cold

Made you look, eh?

Yeah, it's not like me to not even check if it was possible to save her. But she died pretty quickly, so I just assumed it would be too taxing to save her if I had to do it in a non-lethal way. Just couldn't be bothered

But that's kinda my point about the characters in the game. I just didn't give a shit, as they all lacked humanity in some way. The entire game was sort of "too cold" for my tastes.