Based on what I've played and read, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a serious Game of the Year candidate. It has all of the depth, breadth, and complexity of the original Deus Ex, but with shiny modernized gameplay mechanics. The stealth and conversation systems are some of the best in the industry, and even some small stuff like hacking is done better than in any other game. 
 
That said, I'm a little concerned about the critical response it's going to get. The Giantbomb guys were lukewarm on it based on their time with the demo. That's totally understandable--Deus Ex 3 needs time, a quiet environment, and a deliberate pace to really shine--but are reviewers going to appreciate that? Or are they going to slam the game for not delivering CoD-style instant gratification, and then ignore the game's many, many merits? I hope Giantbomb gives this game a fair shot, at least.

You seem overly confident about this game.

This game will certainly be good for a certain portion of players, it's polished, looks great and will have a solid story and atmosphere. I think that reviewers will give it mediocre middle of the road reviews citing it's overly orange colour pallet and that it is out of date in terms of how it plays. (Personally I don't feel like that, but most people seem to think it should have changed more).

from what iv'e been hearing, alot of gaming journalists seem to think this game is more Alpha Protocol and less Deus Ex in terms of quality

@valrog said:

You seem overly confident about this game.

What...? A LOT of people are saying pretty much the same thing as this guy, minus the reviewer friendliness of it. A lot of people are very happy with what they've played/seen.

I think he is lacking confidence in the review staff. It's not like all they ever review is fucking CoD. I feel like Portal 2 was very much the same, you had to kind of play it in that way that devs play the game for their first gameplay trailer, trying to make it look all cinematic and smooth, and taking way more time than anyone would normally take because of it. They reviewed that just fine. They reviewed the Fallout games just fine, where half hour long conversations are totally a goddamn thing. I think they will be fine. They might not give it a high score, but I doubt it'll because they didn't do the game justice.

Don't call it Deus Ex 3 cuz it ain't!!!   it's a prequel :O

The only problem I saw with it is the animations in general and the facial features. And I've heard the soundtrack, it's not as fantastic as I was hoping. Though the song you hear in the trailers is the ending theme and then some, and that's alright.

@valrog said:

@MordeaniisChaos: All I've seen was crying and complaining. I have to stop using GT...

GT as in Gametrailers? If that's the case then yes, you need to stop using GT. The community there is awful. It's like the Steam forums took a shit and it became sentient.

@valrog said:

@MordeaniisChaos: All I've seen was crying and complaining. I have to stop using GT...

GT as in Gametrailers? If that's the case then yes, you need to stop using GT. The community there is awful. It's like the Steam forums took a shit and it became sentient.

@NTM said:

The only problem I saw with it is the animations in general and the facial features. And I've heard the soundtrack, it's not as fantastic as I was hoping. Though the song you hear in the trailers is the ending theme and then some, and that's alright.

Ambient music such as this blew me away..

No, it's gonna be called a bad Mass Effect 
 
you heard it here first.

What's "reviewer friendly" mean? I think games that reviewers are friendly to are, generally, games that are well made and fun to play. By that rationale, games that reviewers are mean to are those that waste the time and money of the people they're reviewing for, gamers. Is Deus Ex a waste of everyone's time and money?

from what iv'e been hearing, alot of gaming journalists seem to think this game is more Alpha Protocol and less Deus Ex in terms of quality

As with any other game, I couldn't care less about reviews-- I've played a lot of games that I thoroughly enjoyed and that were bashed in reviews, while also very much disliking quite a few praised games out there.
A review is just a personal opinion. And my personal opinion on DE:HR is that I'm very much looking forward to it :)

@keef said:

What's "reviewer friendly" mean? I think games that reviewers are friendly to are, generally, games that are well made and fun to play. By that rationale, games that reviewers are mean to are those that waste the time and money of the people they're reviewing for, gamers. Is Deus Ex a waste of everyone's time and money?

Some games are more accessible than others. Games such as STALKER are not terrible games, but some reviewers and people can downrate dispise them cause of how inaccesible they may be.

I dunno for sure, but I'll tell you this, that for fans of the game no review score will be high enough.  

What's "reviewer friendly" mean? I think games that reviewers are friendly to are, generally, games that are well made and fun to play. By that rationale, games that reviewers are mean to are those that waste the time and money of the people they're reviewing for, gamers. Is Deus Ex a waste of everyone's time and money?

@emergency said:

@keef said:

What's "reviewer friendly" mean? I think games that reviewers are friendly to are, generally, games that are well made and fun to play. By that rationale, games that reviewers are mean to are those that waste the time and money of the people they're reviewing for, gamers. Is Deus Ex a waste of everyone's time and money?

Some games are more accessible than others. Games such as STALKER are not terrible games, but some reviewers and people can downrate dispise them cause of how inaccesible they may be.

I understand where you're coming from, but don't think Stalker's the best example. While it got good marks iirc, the problem with Stalker wasn't so much accessibility as it was a buggy mess at the start. Such a good game though.

It'll review well in Europe, less so in NA.

A score's a score. If you know you're going to buy the game already, then why do you even care about it?

After Alpha Protocol, I'll be buying this regardless of the reviews. Alpha Protocol was an amazing game.. let down by it's story, but had great gameplay and a lot of depth to the customisation and choices. It's exactly the type of game Bioware should be making, instead of catering to the casual crowd. I can see certain people being put off by the fact it's more RPG and less shooter.. but I really don't care what those people think.

@OldThrashbarg said:

@keef said:

What's "reviewer friendly" mean? I think games that reviewers are friendly to are, generally, games that are well made and fun to play. By that rationale, games that reviewers are mean to are those that waste the time and money of the people they're reviewing for, gamers. Is Deus Ex a waste of everyone's time and money?

No, reviewers can respond to different factors than a game merely being well-made or fun to play. Think about how easily accessible a game is. Do you think a reviewer is going to be equally fair to an instantly-digestible CoD clone, as compared to a super-complex hardcore strategy game like Europa Universalis 3? What if a game simply requires more time investment to understand its charms? Some games grow on people, some games do the opposite and repel people once players have had time to realize underlying problems. These are just examples. My point is, review scores aren't always reflective of pure quality. There are often other issues involved.

I think your concern is whether or not Deus Ex will get hit on Metacritic due to how accessible it is. So perhaps a better title for the thread might be "Is this game accessible to the majority of hardcore gamers?"

The game is riding on top of a well loved title (DX: IW doesn't exist in our minds) so people are naturally going to expect a lot from it. I really enjoyed Deus Ex but to be frank it does have problems. At the time the graphics were considered quite weak and the AI is pretty dumb. The reason why most people loved it was because of the concept of the entire game (which it pulled off pretty well). Having played the DX: HR leak a while back, I really enjoyed it. I can see where the complaints are coming from though, the characters are a little wooden, the black/gold colour palette is a little excessive, the gameplay fells more mechanical then fluid (albeit still workable and enjoyable to use) and there are boss fights/cutscenes. I don't expect it to break new ground but at the very least, I think it's enough to make the DX universe enjoyable to be in, which is what it wants to be.

A score's a score. If you know you're going to buy the game already, then why do you even care about it?

If the game does end up like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. it should sell just as well. Even if it sells well on nostalgia alone, that could provide enough incentive and funds to create a sequel that solves problems found in the first game.

  Deus Ex 3 needs time, a quiet environment, and a deliberate pace to really shine--but are reviewers going to appreciate that? Or are they going to slam the game for not delivering CoD-style instant gratification, and then ignore the game's many, many merits? 

I don't mean to be rude but what you seem to be asking is "Can professional reviewers do a professional job reviewing this game?", to which the answer is of course, yes. These people write about video games as their job, they're very familiar with the fact that certain games require certain time commitments to be appreciated fully and that if you're reviewing them you should play them in an environment which will lead to as little bias as possible. If they are making judgements based on accessibility then that's unintentional (at least not for most respectable game reviewers), as a review is supposed to be a reflection of how good the reviewer thinks the game is and nothing else, but even if that is a large-scale games journalism issue, I don't see how it would have any significant effect on Deus Ex 3. It may be less accessible than some games on the market, but professional games journalists aren't going to exactly find this thing an incomprehensible rubix cube of systems and mechanics, especially not if they've played previous Deus Ex games, and many of the people reviewing Deus Ex 3 will have played previous Deus Ex games, I'm sure Giant Bomb will assign someone to the task who has. 
 
Honestly, even considering the environment and the time they spent with it, the Giant Bomb guys know what they're doing and while the demo they saw may not be representative of the final product, if they said that demo has some issues then there's a good chance it did.

As with any other game, I couldn't care less about reviews-- I've played a lot of games that I thoroughly enjoyed and that were bashed in reviews, while also very much disliking quite a few praised games out there. A review is just a personal opinion. And my personal opinion on DE:HR is that I'm very much looking forward to it :)

You seem overly confident about this game.

I'm waiting for reviews before deciding whether I should buy this.

@valrog said:

You seem overly confident about this game.

Yeah...more and more of these random "i like this game so it must be good even though i havent played it yet" topics keep pop'in up. I think gamefaqs users are invading.

from what iv'e been hearing, alot of gaming journalists seem to think this game is more Alpha Protocol and less Deus Ex in terms of quality

i've been on and off with this game. i'm currently very excited. don't really give a shit if somebody doesn't like it and i do, tho.

I'm waiting for reviews before deciding whether I should buy this.

@Toms115: If there's a demo out, sure. But if not, I'll just watch more gameplay footages and read the reviews.

You seem overly confident about this game.

@valrog said:

You seem overly confident about this game.

I was like that at first, then i realized that it's going to be a consolified piece of shit...oh well.

@TheDudeOfGaming said:

@valrog said:

You seem overly confident about this game.

I was like that at first, then i realized that it's going to be a consolified piece of shit...oh well.

It really isn't. It's actually significantly deeper and more complex than the original Deus Ex. Watch youtube playthroughs of the leaked build if you're not convinced.

Preconceived notions haven't stopped giant bomb from giving a game a fair shake.

@Toms115: If there's a demo out, sure. But if not, I'll just watch more gameplay footages and read the reviews.

@WonderboyCoz said:

from what iv'e been hearing, alot of gaming journalists seem to think this game is more Alpha Protocol and less Deus Ex in terms of quality

Really!? I red a PC Mag preview that was very positive about it but to be honest I don't trust them.

@Pibo47 said:

@valrog said:

You seem overly confident about this game.

Yeah...more and more of these random "i like this game so it must be good even though i havent played it yet" topics keep pop'in up. I think gamefaqs users are invading.

I have played it, extensively. DX:HR had a build leak a few months back, and Eidos Montreal encouraged people to post impressions of it.

@emergency: I'm getting a serious TRON/Mass Effect vibe from that music. That's a compliment because I love the music from both of those.

@Toms115: By the time the game is out available for renting I'd probably read reviews of it and seen what I needed to see to make my decision.

@Toms115: By the time the game is out available for renting I'd probably read reviews of it and seen what I needed to see to make my decision.

@Toms115: Indeed, renting it at that point is very stupid.

@Pibo47 said:

@valrog said:

You seem overly confident about this game.

Yeah...more and more of these random "i like this game so it must be good even though i havent played it yet" topics keep pop'in up. I think gamefaqs users are invading.

Actually quite a few people already have played a significant portion of the game.

@valrog said:

@OldThrashbarg: Quick question. Can you turn off that hideous highlights on usable objects? It's killing the immersion.

Yes. But at least in the leak it is tied to the difficulty setting.

Be warned tho you are going to inevitably miss a lot of stuff that way.