Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

This is the game that I wish fans had noticed. This game underperformed commercially wise which it's a shame cuz both games are really good. Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided are one of the best stealth / dystopian games ever made. I really hope we get the third and last one so we can get a proper ending to Adam Jensens story.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is an unnecessary game. Eidos-Montreal wrote a self contained banger of a story with the first game, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a worthy successor to the original, there was no need to make yet *another* game, especially with Jensen, but they came back to the drawing board anyway, only to have Square Enix pull the rug out from under them. They were told to split the game they were making into two halves, so Square could ship it as a trilogy.
So they released DE:MD, got to work on the second half, were moved from that to multiple other projects, some failures, some not, then sold off to Embracer, where they were supposedly making the third game again, but were then wracked with layoffs when Embracers billion dollar deal fell through. Eidos-Montreal now plays second fiddle to her sister company Crystal Dynamics.
So this game should be bad right? It was quite literally hamstrung during development.
You finish what feels like the end of the mid game arc, and then abruptly, credits roll. Out of everything, this alone is the only jarring part. AND, the only negative thing I have to say about the game.
Everything else is Eidos-Montreal at arguably its strongest. Everything from the first game was improved upon to the nth degree. The movement and controls got a full face lift, the environments are more focused and feel more lived in. The powers actually give you a wide variety of focused gameplay styles now. You can slip through areas completely unknown, or you can blaze through them with modified SMG’s and take shotgun blasts like a wall.
Guns can still be modified with scopes and silencers, but now they can also be upgraded through crafting materials. Damage can be upped, capacity can be upped, etc. Crafting actually isn’t obnoxious in this game, you have one resource aptly named “Crafting materials” that you will find in abundance as you scour through every drawer and locker, and you can use it to craft (my beloved) multi-tools, nano blades, etc. It’s not overwhelming, it’s well implemented and compliments the game well by not getting in your way.
Every limited open world game should take a page out of this game for how the team designed Prague. The city is a character all in itself. There are nooks and crannies and secrets to be discovered everywhere. It’s not a “living and breathing” city like you might find in open world sandbox games, npc’s aren’t really milling about, but it’s a city that engages you like a puzzle. You will find vents that connect you from relevant act 1 areas to relevant act 3 areas. It is the best kind of maze, and pro tip, getting the boosted jump upgrade early lets you bypass SO MUCH.
Prague is truly stunning. The muted colors compliment each other well. It helps that throughout the 3 acts, the city changes in completely different ways and the colors that use wash out the city in a noir kind of way. The game fits a highly specific vibe, it hits the same notes as walking the rainy streets of New Mombasa in Halo ODST. What compliments it the most is the soundtrack. It’s no surprise that you can find countless “work/study/write to Deus Ex MD” playlists and compilations on YouTube. Stand out tracks include “TF29”, “Church of the Machine God”, “Golem City: RVAC Row”.
The side quests are better. Half of them don’t even get a resolution, but they queue up what would’ve been the next portion so well, you can almost anticipate where they were going to go.They feed into the main storyline perfectly, a lot of them end up reflecting either Jensen or add to the core principles of the game.
The main story is exceptional, top notch really. Had Eidos been left alone to make the remaining section of the game, it would’ve been grand. Even better than the first (they have a bunch of teasers in the game about where they would’ve gone with it, and some crazy reveals. Read the theories online after you beat the game to see what could’ve been.)
Ultimately, this is a series about a man on a crusade of one. He’s up against the most powerful individuals in the world, and from the context of the original Deus Ex game, we know he inevitably fails. Adam Jensen is a cog that eventually gets crushed by the machine. And yet, for someone who always has his eyes on the bigger picture, he never misses the forest for the trees. You help so many different individuals in both of these games, especially in the second one. You can definitively say that Adam Jensen is a force for good, and even though his crusade fails, that doesn't change just how many lives he improved along the way. An admirable way of moving forward in life.
I feel like rating this game would almost do it a disservice, but 5/5, easy. A “5” with me telling you that this game, and its predecessor had irrevocably changed me for the better, and will stick with me until it’s my time for the journey into the unknown.
∞/5. Deus Ex: Mankind Redeemed.

Put a big asterisk in that thumbs up. This is another candidate for a mixed review, although there is technically nothing (much) wrong with the game, it has a list of things you should know about before you play it.

It takes Human Revolution's formula two years into the future in the post-Aug Incident world. Most of the game takes place in Prague in the Czech Republic, and they did a great job at replicating the architecture of a post-communist slavic country. The music, in the few moments where it matters, is really good - like the TF29 complex, or Apex Towers and final battle theme. Gameplay is, if not as, then at least almost as solid as HR, with a list of new toys to play around with. When this game does it right, it feels just like the Deus Ex we love.

...unfortunately this doesn't happen very often. While Prague is indeed a very nice miniature open world, the problem is there isn't really much meat otherwise. Doing sidequests that require you to run around the city can feel a little bit like padding, especially during the third visit when Prague is under martial law and you have to sneak your way through the streets often requiring you to go back and forth, should you ignore them entirely you will realize there's only about four missions that actually have you sneak through some kind of complex (and easily the best ones are also the shortest ones, where you will hit the end and proclaim in surprise "that's it??"), all of them taking up about 15 hours to go through at most. While it is some of the best Deus Ex has to offer, it's also not quite enough to satisfy someone who would be eager for a sequel after experiencing Human Revolution.
All of this is likely a side effect of the horrible marketing this game has received from Square Enix, including microtransactions and the absolutely infamous Augment Your Preorder campaign - ironically the consumables you receive are one-time only and you can't even reuse them on multiple save files, which is insane! What likely happened is SE forcing Eidos Montreal to push the game out the door before its story was anywhere near done - either due to the terrible marketing campaign, or because they wanted to milk more money out of the third Jensen game that would tie it back to the original Deus Ex, a game which never happened due to how terribly this one has performed.

The other downside is the poor technical state of the game - my entire playthrough of Human Revolution only suffered from a couple of crashes, while the list of issues I encountered in Mankind Divided are as follows: dozens of load loops requiring Alt+F4 and reboot, a few crashes and a dozen cases where a particular model decided to start freaking out turning into massive stretched out flickering textures in the world (most likely related to misloading NPC models - as one of those I managed to find a source of, a man with his chest model missing entirely). This game is, to put it bluntly, a mess and requires some level of patience to deal with its shortcomings.

Overall, if you're here for strictly just more of HR, you would be disappointed - this game is about one-third more Deus Ex, two-thirds messing around in the mini-open world of Prague. While the good parts of it are some of the best ones, there is simply too much extra padding for me to not put the massive disclaimer next to my recommendation. While the open world itself is still good - it is not the same kind of experience, and any potential players need to be aware of what they're getting into before diving in.

This game was cancelled halfway in order to work on Guardians of the Galaxy game. If you care about the story just know that the game ends halfway, abruptly. Also those DLC packs you get are SINGLE USE and locks your save. Also has Denuvo eating %10 of your fps. At this point you should understand that this is a business/company type game, which killed the anti-business type franchise. And they don't give up the license either, I'm trying my best to contain my sadness and anger.
Putting those aside, Prague is nice. I like the side quests and jumping around the city. The gameplay has also improved compared to DX:HR and feels much more fluid. I would recommend this if you're just looking for an action game or a fan of the franchise (or it's rotten corpse at this point). If you're looking for a proper stealth or imsim I'll advise you to spend your time better.
Recommended by: Experiences Worth Experiencing

I like Mankind Divided, but It's kinda ironic when they sell you overpriced micro-transactions in a bug-ridden game that criticizes corporate greed.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

I have no doubt that Mankind Divided is a true masterpiece of the tenth art. At first, I thought it was just another poorly made generic FPS. I tried playing it four times, and only on the fourth attempt did I finally understand that it was, in fact, an RPG. That changed everything. This is how the game should be approached: not as a shooter, but as a deep role-playing experience.

What fascinated me the most was the developers’ decision to create a small and dense world instead of a vast, generic, and empty open world, which is unfortunately typical in modern games. The environment in Mankind Divided is incredibly detailed, full of notes and rich lore.

I love literature, and being able to read all those in-game notes made me genuinely happy. It brought the world to life. You start to feel like that universe truly exists, with its own history and depth.

I just finished the main campaign and I’m honestly disappointed because the game ends abruptly, and to this day there is no continuation. That’s a shame, because this is a work of art. A game with this level of immersion should never be thrown away or forgotten.

While not a triumph, Mankind Divided is an extremely enjoyable cyberpunk adventure with enough content and gameplay options to keep fans of the franchise happy. The main story lacks impact and drops off completely at the end, but the missions are almost universally fantastic, allowing you to flex your cybernetically-enhanced muscles in a multitude of ways.