I find all the claims that the boss fights are "geared only to a certain playstyle" to be complete bolocks. Honestly they couldn't make it any easier, and this isn't just me toting my E-Penis. There is an ample supply of ALL types of ammo all around the battle arenas, and with a little finesse you can get plenty of hits with any weapon. the only situation I can see being difficult is if someone only carrys a tranq rifle, and if that's the case... cummon man. Every boss has an easy to pickup patter, almost like a megaman boss. So I ask, is it just gamers getting less tolerant of difficult games (even though everyone's always crying that games are too easy.) or am I missing something... by getting it...?

Edit: For the record this is mostly a response to the penny arcade comic, and the comments therof. http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/09/02 I should really stop reading those comics. They never fail to make me rage.

Yeah, the boss fights are actually pretty easy, especially if you have upgraded weapons.

No it's that boss battles are bullshit for a game that allows you to otherwise not kill people. Feels contrived storywise, not necessarily that it's hard.

@DystopiaX said:

No it's that boss battles are bullshit for a game that allows you to otherwise not kill people. Feels contrived storywise, not necessarily that it's hard.

I find, personally, that them allowing you to kill bosses and not have that effect the trophy to be an easy way out and them admitting that they suck at making bosses. I finished the first and third boss nonleathally and I'm damn proud of it. I was LITERALLY out of every single nonlethal ammo type there was so I had to kill them with an SMG.

Also, wait until you beat the game without killing anyone and not get the trophy. It could have at least have the courtesy to be like MGS and tell you how many people you killed.

I. MAD.

You've misunderstood the issue. The problem is that you're put into a very conformed arena with some weapons spread around and have to just shoot the boss. There's no way to hack your way through the encounter, no way to sneak, no alternate paths. You've spent the entire game building up your character to deal with situations a certain way, and then you're suddenly forced into straight up fight mode. The absolute worst of this is the third boss. I'm gonna try not to spoil it, but not only do they force you into a situation, if you make certain choices they make it impossible to do anything else.

@N7 said:

@DystopiaX said:

No it's that boss battles are bullshit for a game that allows you to otherwise not kill people. Feels contrived storywise, not necessarily that it's hard.

I find, personally, that them allowing you to kill bosses and not have that effect the trophy to be an easy way out and them admitting that they suck at making bosses. I finished the first and third boss nonleathally and I'm damn proud of it. I was LITERALLY out of every single nonlethal ammo type there was so I had to kill them with an SMG.

Also, wait until you beat the game without killing anyone and not get the trophy. It could have at least have the courtesy to be like MGS and tell you how many people you killed.

I. MAD.

Did you kill people at the beginning, before you were augmented? Didn't realize that counted myself until halfway through the game

I dunno. They're not that bad, but they also seem pretty out of place to me. 

@DystopiaX said:

No it's that boss battles are bullshit for a game that allows you to otherwise not kill people. Feels contrived storywise, not necessarily that it's hard.

Personally I think the idea that Jensen could get through the events of the game without actually fighting someone to be even more contrived storywise.

@august said:

@DystopiaX said:

No it's that boss battles are bullshit for a game that allows you to otherwise not kill people. Feels contrived storywise, not necessarily that it's hard.

Personally I think the idea that Jensen could get through the events of the game without actually fighting someone to be even more contrived storywise.

what part of the story do you think would force him to kill people?

@DystopiaX: Oh man. Are you serious? I remember hearing that didn't count since it was the prologue and since you couldn't take them down non-lethally.

@DystopiaX said:

@august said:

@DystopiaX said:

No it's that boss battles are bullshit for a game that allows you to otherwise not kill people. Feels contrived storywise, not necessarily that it's hard.

Personally I think the idea that Jensen could get through the events of the game without actually fighting someone to be even more contrived storywise.

what part of the story do you think would force him to kill people?

Oh, I dunno... being locked in a room with a psychotic cybernetic killing machine, maybe?

@DystopiaX said:

@august said:

@DystopiaX said:

No it's that boss battles are bullshit for a game that allows you to otherwise not kill people. Feels contrived storywise, not necessarily that it's hard.

Personally I think the idea that Jensen could get through the events of the game without actually fighting someone to be even more contrived storywise.

what part of the story do you think would force him to kill people?

Oh, I dunno... being locked in a room with a psychotic cybernetic killing machine, maybe?

I went full stealth (didn't use the invisibility stuff though) and had no problem killing any of the bosses.

I killed Barrett with maxed-out hacking, inventory slots, the speech upgrade and some other random stuff which is useless in an actual fight. All you have to do is stun him with EMP grenades and shoot him in the head with one of the guns lying around his level. 
 
Yeah, it doesn't offer any alternatives like the original game, but it's not impossible either. 

@N7 said:

@DystopiaX: Oh man. Are you serious? I remember hearing that didn't count since it was the prologue and since you couldn't take them down non-lethally.

Yeah, cause you can just sneak past them.

@Klei said:

@N7 Why do people say they're out of place? I don't get it? Since when BOSSES are effin out of place? They're mercenaries, just as in MGS, trying to block your way. Even in MGS, they just die in the end even if you tranq, them to death. What is it that you people want? Bosses that can be skipped entirely? What kind of a challenge is that? Sometimes, even in real life, our hands gets forced to do things that we wouldn't normaly do. Jensen is confronted by men and women who not only wants him dead, but forces him into singular combat. Also, the super vast majority of this game can be done anyway you want. Still, people complain that it's not enough. Seriously, if you were in Jensen's shoes, you wouldn't carry a gun and a handful of bullets just in case something would go awfully wrong? You can't control everything and every outcome, where's the fun in that? People need to open their minds up a bit. Jensen is forced into combat and the devs made it pretty obvious that you can use whatever strategy on them. Gas grenades, EMP's, environmental effects and so on. It's not like if the bosses were unkillable unless you had a specific weapon that you couldn't find for shit unless you magically decided to carry it before hand.

Comparing this game to MGS is dumb cause Deus Ex makes a point of giving you many choices, including the choice not to kill anyone; the achievement makes it clear that they view that playstyle as viable. I don't want skippable boss fights, I don't want boss fights period. The game lets you talk your way out of shit, why not this one? Because they feel like you need to have epic fights with people? That thought runs counter to much of what the rest of Deus Ex is about- choice to pursue your objectives any way you want. Also your example of "choice" isn't really choice. It doesn't matter HOW you kill someone; that's not the relevant choice here. The rest of the game gives you many choices- sneak past dudes, kill them, hack things to have other things kill them, etc.- the fact that none of those options are available for the boss fights is ridiculous.

You shouldn't take so much offense from comics and/or other people's opinions, it never ends well, and it doesn't make you feel good either, I know from experience!

@DystopiaX: I get what your saying about multiple choices, but like Klei said, even though Jensen as a character is usually someone who finds multiple ways around situations. In the case of the boss fights he is literally face with people who supposedly killed his girlfriend, and left him for dead. I don't know about you but I wouldn't be to keen on talking to people like that.

As someone who played on Hard, set off no alarms, killed no one, had no grenades and only carried non-lethal weapons, yes the bosses were stupid. If I didn't spam duck before the cutscene ended I would die instantly, then I had to run around the room to collect items I've never used before just to defeat a "boss".

Were they hard? Not really. It just did not suit my playthrough at all, there should of been alternate ways to deal with them, just like there was with everything else in the game.

I have only killed Barrett so far and have been aiming for a mostly non-lethal playthrough (maining tranq gun and only getting the lead out when i mess up bad) 
 
As such being FORCED to fight one on one was quite a culture shock compared to everything i had done up to that point, but i feel i enjoyed it more because of it, i was making it up on the fly, and because of that it felt a hell of a lot more like i'd panic induced, skin of my teeth just scraped a fight  - that for a boss battle, should feel like that. 
 
At the beginning i unloaded my upgraded pistol into him, saw it had no effect, i rolled around from cover trying to find something i could use to my advantage, eventually coming across a gas canister - i launched it at him and as he sat in a choking fit, lobbed an explosive barrel at him, exploding it just as he launched a barrage of explosives back at me.  
 Evading the counter measures i ducked into a side room, i could hear him getting closer to my hide-hole as i scavenged around for something that i could use, some hollow mine shells looked a snug fit for my emp grenades. i ran outside to draw some fire before throwing 2 mines across to him, they stuck him in place whilst i sprinted behind him and layed down some remote explosives, i quickly bolted to the explosive barrel in the corner and threw it into the mass of emp mines and c4 i had prepared, the fireworks did the rest. 
 
I have no idea how the rest of the battles play out yet, and can see how the "here's an arena full of weapons, go nuts!" style of encounter could really mess with the pacing. But as someone that had been stunning/tranquing (only killing in the prologue and one occasion in the 2nd sarif invasion when i was spitted by a camera) - being trapped with nothign but what i could muster out of the environment, and not having the time to really think about how to use my preferred abilities (let alone if i actually could) was a thrilling situation for a boss fight. 
 
Out of interest, are there any ways to non-lethal take down bosses? via tranqs/ speech or hacking? spoilers to a minimum but i would like to be able to vary it up a bit in case my first boss encounter was a one off

The worse thing about the boss battles is how dated they feel. Deus Ex is a great game, with a unique design (Though not as much as the first one), but then they shoehorn 4 bosses in and make those parts feel like 90s Doom. Fallout 3, which is the most similar FPS to Human Revolution (I guess they qualify), has no mandatory boss fights. I feel like Deus Ex would've been better without mandatory boss fights. They just became a black hole for my ammo and stims.

Beyond the boss fights being a contrivance, they did not offend me. I enjoyed them in fact, though the last was both too easy and a bit distubing.

I'm at the same point as the original poster. Playing as a purely stealth/hacking based character and have had no trouble with boss fights so far.

Still carefully avoiding spoilers though, so I have no idea what anybody else has been saying.

I honestly didn't find the bosses that hard either - though I was playing on normal doing a non-lethal playthrough.   
 
The first boss kinda killed himself after he lost sight of me and started chucking grenades everywhere (lol?). 
 
The second boss I killed using all the frag mines I had collected during my playthrough. 
 
The third boss was also easy.  I got my 'Pacifist' achievement no problem.  Playing through on hard now but this time I'm allowing myself to kill as I want to try out the Typhoon system. :)

I on the contrary wanted more bosses :( but I do get my fellow gamers plight , it would´ve been very interesting to be able to skip such encounter through other means , heck remember in MGS3 snake eater you could totally skip the End´s boss battle? By killing him before hand (if I remember correctly) or by taking you sweet time so by the time you get to him , he is dead by age (so awesome if I might add) , so yeah for us who wanted boss battles we got our fill but for those who didn´t wanted they were indeed forced into them ,which does suck a bit all things considered.

I actually find the boss fights to be really fun, but then I'm weird and actually like the boss battles in the Dead Rising games. While they never get up to the same level of greatness the boss fights in Deus Ex feel like they're trying to be Metal Gear-style bosses, which looking at the achievements for them, probably isn't a coincidence. I admit they can be frustrating some times learning their pattern, but it's not that terrible. 
 
Really the worst thing about them is that they're forced on you. In the original Deus Ex you could run past most boss fights and not even have to deal with them if you didn't want to.

@NekuCTR said:

So I ask, is it just gamers getting less tolerant of difficult games ?

Yes.

On the hardest difficulty you have to be a bit more careful though.

Bosses are just bullshit in this game, hands down. I play stealth and non lethal. So I'm not dragging big pea shooters around, and i shouldn't have to use the guns if i don't want to. But there isnt really any other way around, because the developers didn't think it through.
 
So the first boss i killed with barrels, the second boss i still only had my trenq gun and stun gun. But luckely i always roll with 12-14 unused praxis poins. So rather than run around like a fucking moron and open gun lockers and equip those, i just upgraded the typhoon to its max, then i used the stun gun to make here dizzy, then used a typhoon, stun gun again and the final typhoon.
 
And i imagine i will end up dong something similar for the third boss. Find their pattern, and weakness, and just use whatever augs that suits that situation.

Like everyone else said, the main problem is that they are kinda out of place in this game. Also, even when you defeat them, it's not satisfying. Both times I killed each boss it felt like I cheated the broken/crap boss AI. The first dude killed himself with his own grenades the first time, and the second time he gagged on gas canisters (guess he forgot upgrade his lung augs), The second boss glitched out the first time and stood still permanently and let me kill her at my leisure, and the second time through I just stun gunned her to death. That being said, this game is awesome and 20 minutes of bland boss fights is a small price to pay for 25+ hours of awesomeness.

The only thing that sucked about the boss is that I was playing completely non-lethal, so I went into the fight with nothing other than a tranq gun. I found guns in the environment, but after that I always kept a spare shotgun just in case things got hairy.