A few posts here and there about Deus Ex: Human Revolution have, over the past little while, gotten me interested in giving the game another shot. And so while getting ready to run out the door to search for a job, I grabbed my copy of Modern Warfare 3 and traded it in to the local Gamestop for a used copy of Dues Ex HR. I got back home, popped it in, and started a new game on the “Give Me Deus Ex” difficulty while my brother watched. As of last night, I got past the Zeke Sanders bit. Saved the hostage, Zeke ran away, and I left behind more dead bodies than I meant to make. I tried to play the game with a clear and open mind, colored as little as possible with my opinions from the first run through it. Chances are that former low opinion had something to do with the whole “dead bodies” thing – I’m not going for the no-kills achievement but I would like to minimize deaths on this run. My original run was fraught with dead guys and big guns in an effort to make a Rambo-style playthrough, something I do not suggest trying with this game. Its strengths lie in stealthily making your way around the various situations placed in front of you with the various tools you’re given. Speaking of tools, that pistol still feels a little unbalanced – not complaining at all. One headshot and bam! He’s history.

It should be noted that some of the problems I had last time are ones that I can still see. Put simply, the presentation is second rate and here is where I think the game’s biggest fault lies. It’s a perpetual black-and-orange environment. Many rooms and areas felt interchangeable way back in August of 2011, and they still feel that way. Voice acting is pretty spotty and is too often grating. It’s odd that I have this complaint; anime shows are notorious for having spotty English dubs and it never bothered me there, so why on Earth it bothers me here I cannot tell. What I never really realized before is that the game itself – the game part of this video game – overpowers all of that. Its presentation issues keep it from perfection but its well-done gaming parts raise it up to be more than it appears, and this is something that I didn’t realize as I was busy shooting everyone last time.

No complaints about this game are complete without mentioning the outsourced boss battles. Frankly, though, I didn’t have many issues with them the first time. By the time I got to that first big guy with the red arms, I had been saving a rocket launcher and had some grenades. He went down pretty quick for me, and the rest were only marginally more difficult. The last one is a bitch (literally and figuratively), but then I remember hating the whole last hour of the game.

To wrap this up somehow, I think I might be changing my mind about this game. It’s certainly more interesting to me than the game I traded in for it – Modern Warfare 3 stayed on my shelf for some multiplayer here and there with friends, but it was hardly enough to keep it there. It just got boring to me, and thus far this game hasn’t been boring at all

Oh, yeah, and the knockout animations are great!

As a final note, these are just preliminary thoughts. I don't really think I can say "first impressions" since this is actually my second time playing this game (and "preliminary thoughts" is a bit of a stretch), but I still need some sort of disclaimer so if I do revert back to my original opinion, it won't be completely unexpected.