Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PlayStation 3) review "You are Adam Jensen, a retired police-man now in the employ of Detroit's largest corporation. Your previous effort in Detroit PD has enlightened you to the ways of the world. But also letting you see that as head of security of Sarif Industries, you are more free to help the town and investigate crimes than as a police-officer. Your method is still that of a good cop, however. Always preferring a non-violent and indirect approach. But it is difficult to convince Adam Jensen to look the other way..."

You are Adam Jensen, a retired police-man now in the employ of Detroit's largest corporation. Your previous effort in Detroit PD has enlightened you to the ways of the world. But also letting you see that as head of security of Sarif Industries, you are more free to help the town and investigate crimes than as a police-officer. Your method is still that of a good cop, however. Always preferring a non-violent and indirect approach. But it is difficult to convince Adam Jensen to look the other way when that would be convenient.

Then again, you are also Adam Jensen, ex-SWAT member, involved in a standoff that cost the lives of several innocent people, among them a 15 year old boy. This led to your retirement from the police-force. The methods you employ are forceful and about as subtle as a tank rolling through a market district. Your personality will be confrontational and terse, but you do get the job done.

Of course, you are also Adam Jensen, dirty cop. You retired from the police-force and found a job in the private sector because it paid better. And you use your newfound independence to your advantage. Your methods are always adaptive - open for opportunities, but morally corrupt. The only line you will not cross is the one imposed by your employer - at least when they are looking your way.

Unfortunately for Adam, all three personalities are contained within the same trenchcoat, and often struggle for domination. In a sense this is not really a problem, though. The first hour of the game will let you establish which type of personality you are the closest to. And the game always will give you opportunities to reinforce the one you chose - “your own” personality. Do you take Megan's mother up on her request - as a close “friend” of Megan's - to find out what happened to her? For closure on your own part as well? Or have you put this part of your life behind you, and have no interest in the quest? Does your “Mother-in-law” deserve a punch to the face for being so assertive? Either can be a perfectly valid choice depending on what you feel, even though you expect the game will force you to take the quest.

But the game also allows you to betray your standards without penalty or reaction at any point. This goes beyond merely choosing a violent or non-violent approach. If you suddenly choose to become a corrupt cop for no reason, the game will allow you to do so without anyone ever commenting on it outside the current quest. Whether you wade through a sea of dead bodies to reach your objective, or spend an hour extra mapping the routes of the soldiers, before using the cloak at a critical point to slip through to the next area undetected - this doesn't matter for the overall flow of the mission. The curious thing here is that the game sometimes does comment on your behavior, specially during and after the first mission. After this segment, however - after you are supposed to have established your “personality” - these challenges to your actions disappear very quickly.

Honestly, I expected something similar to the fairly simple formula in the original Deus Ex, where depending on your methods and approach, you end up in a conflict with at least one of the personalities that survey you. But choosing that approach would involve optional areas and branching between quests, and modern games don't do that (with the exception of Alpha Protocol and Heavy Rain). So Deus Ex: Human Revolution has a fundamental approach that treats each critical scenario as one self-contained hub. When the game breaks from this, we are treated to one hundred percent optional sub-quests that spawn from something you did in the previous scenario.

For example, there is an option during the first mission (a hostage crisis), where Jensen can let the “leader” of the operation escape. To convince him to escape successfully, you must choose the right approach between the different dialogue choices (“rationalize, confront, accuse, absolve”). And then later, a mysterious secret source will request a meeting, where they offer you inside information.

If you shot the terrorist-leader (or he ends up getting himself shot) in the first scenario, that quest won't turn up. If you stunned him, and he would get arrested, this side-quest also doesn't happen. There is also an event during a later mission where the terrorist leader may or may not turn up depending on your choices during this and the later mission. In other words, for all the intrigue between the factions and the powers, the game-world events all take place in isolated and independent pockets. Even to the point where a boss (“extrapolate, absolve, reason”) isn't aware of that you just executed his brother less than three minutes ago when you entered uninvited through the window upstairs.

Fortunately, the scripted scenarios themselves are very well written. Specially when the sequences move between gameplay to scripted camera-work and dialogue - or more accurately, debate - the game is interesting. Not just because of the writing and the visual cues you receive that clue you in on the thinking of the other characters, but because of the options you can choose along the way. And the independent mission-hubs branch while you go through them. This means that the outcome of the missions will typically be different depending on which personality arch-type you are. And that is a success, because it gives the game an illusion of responding to your actions.

Unfortunately, this approach fell flat during the boss-encounters. There is always one option to “solve” the boss-fight without simply firing your gun a lot if you picked the right augmentation (note: no clue is given to what this augmentation might be ahead of the fight). But in the end, the game expect you to kill your enemies indiscriminately.

It turns out that the boss-fights will happen this way:

Community review by fleinn (October 10, 2011) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.