Deus Ex: Human Revolution Initial Impressions

Please post your impressions here.

So far I've liked the presentation, tutorials, and the music.

Now where is my preorder bonus code? I will be calling Gamestop tomorrow before playing…

I had a surprising number of technical issues getting the game. Impulse stopped downloading at like 90% and then I tried to resume it and Impulse deleted it and restarted so I had download the whole thing again which is a lot at 7+ GB. After that steam seemed to require downloading another 20% after the install.

My Nvidia GTX 550 has a number of graphical artifacts which seems to be fixed by turning off Tesselation in the graphic options. The game also managed to break Windows 7 when I alt-tabbed out of the game (could not reproduce but required a reboot) as Ctrl+Alt+Del stopped working and would not do anything.

I cannot seem to skip some cutscenes with space key which is annoying as I am experimenting and dont really care to hear the same speech over again.

On one hand I like that the game is more dynamic and expects you to behave in character. But I also dont like to be rushed so the multiple reminders that I have to get to the chopper in the first mission and stop talking to people irritated me a little. I think I'll appreciate that more later in the game. In the meantime I just reload from the start of the map after doing the exploration thing. Which does raise another minor nuisance which was noticeably slow load times but that could be me being spoiled by recent games that load quick.

About the game itself, it certainly feels like what I remember of the original. The augmentations are cool but seems like the original did not tell you all the possible augmentations up front and you had to find them rather then expend points which I thought added a little bit more character.

Also on the positive side, I like to play stealthy/non-lethal and the game certainly does support that option so far. Aside from those issues I'm enjoying my brief time with it.

I've played through the tutorial areas, but after 11 hours on 2 airplanes earlier today, I'm too tired to play any further tonight.

I really like the visuals.. a lot more than I though I was going to. I'm playing at 1920x1200 with everything maxed except Depth of Field, which I prefer to leave disabled. It's not completely smooth though.. I'm getting a slight jerk from time to time.

The music I've heard so far is 100% Deus Ex.

Only one complaint so far.. at what point is the game going to stop showing a prompt every time I can use/activate something?

figment said:

My Nvidia GTX 550 has a number of graphical artifacts which seems to be fixed by turning off Tesselation in the graphic options. it.

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Was it black lines/bars that would stretch across parts of the screen? That's the only glitch I've experienced so far. I'll see if disabling Tesselation works for me.

I got some artifacting with Tesselation on as well, turned it off and artifacts disappeared. Though that was just really small "dots" over character faces, not anything too major like black lines. I also had some frame-rate troubles with Vsync on. Turned it off and it's smooth sailing though getting the occasional screen tear here and there. Nothing too annoying.

Really liking the game so far overall. But the loading times as well as boss battles are... really unfortunate.

I'm ready to go down in Detroit streets.

No technical problem so far, beside one cutscene freezing the game (not the first time it happen in a Steam game for me though, I had the same problem in Batman Arkham Asylum). I re-loaded and it worked flawlessly after that. I have no problem with Tesselation on either (AMD GPU though).

I like the weapons I tried and that they are "lethal" (Tranquilizing Rifle is awesome) . I died a few times, trying to get adjusted to the controls, I'm not used to this cover system yet. I like the hacking minigame. The "social battle" is really awesome. I also love the details to the levels, really immersive. So far, it feel a bit corridory though, but I'm mostly been inside buildings.

Some things I discovered:

• Fall damage is in, I died jumping from the second story in the Sariff building.
• Alcohol cause blurriness for a while and give you temp hitpoint.
• Sariff lobby secretary is really dumb.
• Concussion grenades turn your screen all white.
• There's too many augmentations, I don't know which to pick.

Oh and I had problem stopping playing last night, which is a good sign.

I really like the augmentation system. While it's clear that there are some balance issues, I really think pretty hard about what upgrades to get. You definitely don't feel like you're gonna be able to max almost everything out.

Plus, some augs which feels fairly simple can still enable pretty cool things. Like above post mention fall damage, and there is an aug that disables that. Sounds boring but it's kinda cool at times and I bet you could make some pretty cool raids if you're doing a more run and gun type of playthrough.

I forgot: Look in trash can and under boxes. They hid stuff in/under some of them.

The early parts of the game are fun, but when I got to the streets of Detroit, that's when the game really started to click with me and remind of why I loved the original Deus Ex. There are just so many options in solving your problems and so much stuff to do. There are so many non combat options you can use depending on your augs, I'm constantly finding alternate routes that make me wish I had a utility augmentation that allowed me to do something like move heavy objects or fall from great heights. And that's with all my augs already being purely non combat.

And yeah I don't have the no fall damage aug, but I've seen a lot of cases where it would have been useful for a stealth/inflitration approach. There are times when you could find a route that would be a major short cut, but the fall would kill you.

After emails and multiple phone calls to Game Stop They sent me the codes to unlock the pre-order bonus in my email. They said the manufacturer was supposed to include the codes in the sealed package, but didn't so, Gamestop is handing out the unlock slips out in the Gamestop bick and mortar stores, and emailing customers the codes for those who bought on their website. What a fucking mess.

Now, when I input the code into Steam, I have no idea if and when Steam will download and install the DLC. Pretty crappy system.

So far I am liking it, although it is definitely more stealth 'sneaker' type of game than FPS. Run and gun will get you killed pretty quick at least on the hardest difficulty which is all I have played. I am okay with that, as everything else seems solid.

Running with all settings maxed, DoF enabled, MSAA, etc. at 1920x1200 on my GTX480 1.5, with AMD 1055@4ghz, Win7-64x.

I did have to tweak the mouse settings, put them down to almost lowest, then use 5600dpi on my mouse to get a 'smooth' feel. I also adjusted the FOV to 80 which did wonders. (The default settings were awful.)

Graphics are gorgeous considering all the detail and very lifelike world. Enemy AI isn't perfect; enemies will still charge straight into a full auto assault rifle for example.

Has the original Deux Ex 'feel' and detailed world which is great.

Back to playing!

Thrasher said:

Now, when I input the code into Steam, I have no idea if and when Steam will download and install the DLC. Pretty crappy system.

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Just look under your DLC tab. It should list what's installed.

*Edit* Btw: tell me what it says under your tab.

Umm my initial impression so far comes from me noticing the OnLive coupon wasn't in the unsealed box they were trying to sell me then me yanking my credit card out of the cashier's hands and leaving the store without the product.

Something about a retailer removing free codes for digital versions of the game from the boxes and not informing customers that the product they were selling did not contain the advertised contents because they removed them in store... makes me refuse to purchase it from them on principle. While an online copy won't come with the same coupon code I'd rather not give Gamestop my money after this. So... time to download from a digital distributor.

JDR13 said:

Just look under your DLC tab. It should list what's installed.

*Edit* Btw: tell me what it says under your tab.

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Well it listed the DLC by name "PreOrderpack1 - Explosive Mission Pack"" as soon as I input the code, but it didn't install it (at least I couldn't find it on my drive). Later it did something behind my back, and said it made an update, which I assumed was the DLC but it looks like the patch, since the executable updated, a day late I might add. You'd think they'd at least provide a human understandable log file of all the updates it does for you automatically. I don't want to start playing until the DLC is installed. Is there anyway to be sure?

I now understand why some people may hate Steam.

Boot up Steam and go to your library. Right click on DX:HR and select "View downloadable content". What does it say there?

Thrasher said:

Well it listed the DLC by name "PreOrderpack1 - Explosive Mission Pack"" as soon as I input the code, but it didn't install it (at least I couldn't find it on my drive). Later it did something behind my back, and said it made an update, which I assumed was the DLC but it looks like the patch, since the executable updated, a day late I might add. You'd think they'd at least provide a human understandable log file of all the updates it does for you automatically. I don't want to start playing until the DLC is installed. Is there anyway to be sure?

I now understand why some people may hate Steam.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't automatically beleive their claim that the manufacturer left out codes meant to be included in the copy you bought from Gamestop. They may very well have removed them accidentally along with the OnLive code their employees were instructed to remove from the box.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/...ng-deus-ex-copies-removing-free-game-code.ars

JDR13 said:

Boot up Steam and go to your library. Right click on DX:HR and select "View downloadable content". What does it say there?

Click to expand...

Exactly what I said above.

jhwisner said:

I wouldn't automatically beleive their claim that the manufacturer left out codes meant to be included in the copy you bought from Gamestop. They may very well have removed them accidentally along with the OnLive code their employees were instructed to remove from the box.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/...ng-deus-ex-copies-removing-free-game-code.ars

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The box I received was sealed. So that would mean they would have to reseal? Not credible.

Thrasher said:

The box I received was sealed. So that would mean they would have to reseal? Not credible.

Click to expand...

Story has been taken up by several reputable sites. It also happened to me. I would call it quite credible. It might not be an explanation for what happened to you though if your box was sealed, but they are removing contents of the boxes in some Gamestop stores.

Well if it wasn't sealed I would never buy it at a "new" price.