Deus Ex: Human Revolution - PC Impressions @ Ars Technica

Well this time I was pretty quick and I knew exactly what to do of course. Maybe my first playthrough was 30 or so, but I don't think so. The point is you can't characterize me as someone who runs through games, I always take a loooong time, well over publisher estimates. I am a slow gamer, but I don't think Deus Ex has 40 hours worth of content in it.

You're right.. me and curious are probably just lying for the sake of it. ;)

Do you always assume that people who post about having a different experience are doing it to oppose your comments?
 
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I got through Deux Ex in what I remember as around 25 hours. I always have some way to figure out playtime - but it's hard to be precise about it.

I played the game in a pretty careful and cerebral way up until around halfway through. I think after Hong Kong - I kinda got tired of stealthing through everything - and the game started losing its impact for me at that point. So, the remaining levels were, if not rushed, then at least somewhat half-assed by me. Also, even from the beginning - I didn't exhaustively read books/PDAs. It just wasn't my style back then.

I can easily see someone being very slow and deliberate getting 40 hours out of it.

For DE:HR - and based on the leak I played, the game could have a similar amount of content in it. They say it represents around 1/3 of the game - though it's very hard to be sure. Personally, I only played the tutorial and the first real level - as I didn't want to spoil too much.

I must have spent around 3-4 hours on the first level, and I wasn't being 100% thorough. There should be at least 2-3 more levels like that in the first area - and my personal estimate is that the game will give me around 30 hours of REALLY solid content - and that's a conservative estimate. Also, the game rewards the careful and thorough player - so there's a gameplay incentive to play that way throughout.

I'm pretty good with these things, but obviously I could be wrong.
 
You're right.. me and curious are probably just lying for the sake of it. ;)

Do you always assume that people who post about having a different experience are doing it to oppose your comments?

Well I for one cant see someone playing Deus Ex for 40 hrs there wasn't enough content to warrant it. I played it multiple times and finished it around 20-25 hrs. I must be missing something then.
 
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It's hardly rocket science, though.

If someone played Deus Ex 100% "run and gun" - shooting everything and ignoring all books/conversations/secrets/etc. - I'm pretty sure he could get through it in 10-15 hours.

As for the opposite way, that would be extremely careful and stealthy - scouting all locations before making your approach, scavenging every corner for secrets, reading every single line of text in every single book/pda/hacked computer, talking to every single NPC and completing every single trivial side quest, and so on. If you're absolutely sure you did everything in every level and you STILL only played for 20 hours, then maybe you're just an extremely fast reader? :)
 
Well I for one cant see someone playing Deus Ex for 40 hrs there wasn't enough content to warrant it. I played it multiple times and finished it around 20-25 hrs. I must be missing something then.

It's not about content though. In these open shooters I sometimes hang out in a hiding place for minutes, trying to assess the situation, watching guards, trying to decide on my aproach. Stuff like that can easily inflate your playtime by a factor of 2 or 3.
 
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It's hardly rocket science, though.

If someone played Deus Ex 100% "run and gun" - shooting everything and ignoring all books/conversations/secrets/etc. - I'm pretty sure he could get through it in 10-15 hours.

As for the opposite way, that would be extremely careful and stealthy - scouting all locations before making your approach, scavenging every corner for secrets, reading every single line of text in every single book/pda/hacked computer, talking to every single NPC and completing every single trivial side quest, and so on. If you're absolutely sure you did everything in every level and you STILL only played for 20 hours, then maybe you're just an extremely fast reader? :)

Why thank you I am. I can finish a 600 page book in a few hrs.;)

It's not about content though. In these open shooters I sometimes hang out in a hiding place for minutes, trying to assess the situation, watching guards, trying to decide on my aproach. Stuff like that can easily inflate your playtime by a factor of 2 or 3.

Yeah the thing is I hate playing as a stealth assassin so I hardly take that route. I will use it when necessary but not the whole game. I love being more commando and killing the enemy first. Its has nothing to do with fps games that's just the way I like to play.
 
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It's not about content though. In these open shooters I sometimes hang out in a hiding place for minutes, trying to assess the situation, watching guards, trying to decide on my aproach. Stuff like that can easily inflate your playtime by a factor of 2 or 3.

Yes, this happens to me in games of this nature as well. In the few games out there that have solid stealth mechanics, I tend to really enjoy spending a lot of time planning my approach, hoping to avoid ever being detected. Sometimes I'll take the non-lethal, non-confrontational route and avoid all contact with guards, other times I'll disable guards in a silent "assassin" way, etc. Playing a game in this manner - especially if you reload when you screw up a stealth approach and try again instead of quickly shooting your way out of trouble - can certainly take a while and add a lot of playtime.
 
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Well I for one cant see someone playing Deus Ex for 40 hrs there wasn't enough content to warrant it. I played it multiple times and finished it around 20-25 hrs. I must be missing something then.

Keep in mind that I'm not talking about linear completion time here. In other words, I'm talking about the total time I spent on that playthrough, including reloads.
 
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Keep in mind that I'm not talking about linear completion time here. In other words, I'm talking about the total time I spent on that playthrough, including reloads.

Alright then makes sense. ;)
 
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You're right.. me and curious are probably just lying for the sake of it. ;)

Do you always assume that people who post about having a different experience are doing it to oppose your comments?

You don't have to get defensive. Maybe my writing style causes that, I dunno, but my only point was… how do you get 40 hours out of the game? If I play games slowly and stealthy too, if I stop and survey too, and I finish the game in half that time… where does the other 20 hours come from? It's an interesting question.

And seeing you are counting reloads and such… that means you are not going by the in-game clock? If so, how do you know how long it took you? That's a serious question because estimates of how long a game feels can often be wildly off-base.
 
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You don't have to get defensive. Maybe my writing style causes that, I dunno, but my only point was… how do you get 40 hours out of the game? If I play games slowly and stealthy too, if I stop and survey too, and I finish the game in half that time… where does the other 20 hours come from? It's an interesting question..

I was just pointing out an observation…sorry if that bothered you. You seem to have a hard time comprehending that people can have different experiences with the same game. No less than four other posters in this thread have already stated that they took that long or could understand taking that long, yet you seem to want to act like it's an impossibility because it differs from your own experience.

And seeing you are counting reloads and such… that means you are not going by the in-game clock? If so, how do you know how long it took you? That's a serious question because estimates of how long a game feels can often be wildly off-base.

Once again, I'm counting the total time I spent on my playthrough. That's why I said "around" 40 hours. It's not an exact time down to the minute, but then again I'm not that anal. At least half the games I've played don't timestamp their save games anyways, so what do you do when playing those games? I play a certain amount of hours per night on a consistent basis, and have done so for a very long time. Let's just say that I'm confident my estimates are not wildly off-base.
 
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I was just pointing out an observation…sorry if that bothered you. You seem to have a hard time comprehending that people can have different experiences with the same game. No less than four other posters in this thread have already stated that they took that long or could understand taking that long, yet you seem to want to act like it's an impossibility because it differs from your own experience.

And you seem to have a hard time separating disagreement or query from egotistical assumption. I am one of those people who takes forever to finish a game, who is told his playtime estimates are wildly exaggerated, and yet you seem to have taken twice as long to finish a game as I did. That's weird to me. Sorry if that bothers you.
 
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And you seem to have a hard time separating disagreement or query from egotistical assumption. I am one of those people who takes forever to finish a game, who is told his playtime estimates are wildly exaggerated, and yet you seem to have taken twice as long to finish a game as I did. That's weird to me. Sorry if that bothers you.

Nope.. once again, I was just pointing out an observation, but I'm not going to go in circles with you over this. I wasn't the one who originally felt the need to post about how he "couldn't imagine" how other people had a different experience.
 
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Here you go, a data point:

I'm playing through Deus Ex for the first time (with New Vision and some other jazz to make it bearable in this modern world, but still essentially the same game) and I've just died 10 times in a row to
Walton Simons in the submarine base.

I don't know how far in that is yet (obviously) but Steam has clocked 28 hours in Deus Ex so far.
 
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I don't know how far in that is yet (obviously) but Steam has clocked 28 hours in Deus Ex so far.

It's pretty far, but I won't be more specific because I don't want to provide spoilers. I'd say you're probably on track to finish at around 33-34 hours, but it could be shorter or longer depending on your style of play.

*Edit* How does Steam track game time? Does it just add your time between saves like most games do, or does it actually count the total amount of time you've spent playing it?
 
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the steam tracker is probably the most innacurrate form of tracking game time at least for me as i often will leave a game "open" or paused for hours while i go do something, or something just alt+tabbing for a little bit doing something on the computer, and many times i'll even leave it on overnight if i forget or am playing a game with a miserly save system that i need a break from. high inefficient i suppose but that's how i end up with some insanely high game time played scores. also i believe i've said it before but i count reloads and having to replay levels or portions of them into my gameplay time, which can add a bit since i usually play on harder difficulty levels. but back then when i played deus ex i almost always started on normal. if the new deus ex only has a easy, normal, hard difficulty i will probably start on normal as well as i know this is a game i will replay. glad i choose hard on the witcher 2 though as it made the experience longer and since i've little desire to replay it, at least until substantial content is added, i already kind of got an "enhanced" experience from the challenge, though the inventory/carrying weight was probably the most reoccuring challenge.
 
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