Home Gaming Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Review Round Up

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Review Round Up

3 min read
26

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is out next week – and unlike many games, has its review embargo drop days before the game is out. That allows you to make smarter purchasing decisions, I think. If it’s garbage, you can bin your pre-order. If it’s great, you can make on with time yet to ensure delivery.

As I’ve said, I’m pretty excited for it and I sincerely hope that it tackles its very serious themes with the sort of maturity you don’t often find in games. Has it? Let’s see what critics have to say about the game.

Gamesradar+ – 4.5/5

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Mankind Divided is full of great moments, from the lengthy journey across The Throat of Golem City, to the simple pleasure of crouching in a Prague bank, wondering how next to proceed.

Polygon – 8.5/10

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I’m left hoping that Deus Ex: Mankind Divided‘s developers have an aggressive, post-launch plan to continue the game’s story beyond its surprising end point. It’s a mottled cherry dropped on top of a game that otherwise makes for subtly major evolutions of action-RPG spaces, and for a world as interesting as Deus Ex’s, it would be a crime to leave it where it stands for another five years.

Destructoid – 8/10

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Deus Ex: Mankind Divided doesn’t succeed in making me care about the plight of humans and augs, but it still pulled me into its compelling cloak-and-dagger world where people in capes can turn invisible and shoot balls of lightning out of their arm. Oh, and your aug doctor looks just like Prince, so it’s in the running for GOTY.

Videogamer – 7/10 

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Mankind Divided hasn’t lost the soul of a Deus Ex game. It has it in Jensen’s home city, a fraught, sparkling, changeable place from which emerge stories both tragic and interesting, all proffered by NPCs who sound unfortunately (or possibly fortunately) like those meerkats in car insurance adverts. You move amongst them and their awkward facial animations, and can alter the course of lives, unseen. The rest of the game is somehow dull in comparison, and doesn’t hit the heights it’s reaching for. In going for detail and variety it often overshoots into complexity; where it wants to be insightful it’s not as clever as it thinks it is. Mankind Divided isn’t bad, but it already feels a few years old. There’s even a neon-coloured VR-style hacking side game. That’s not very Adam Jensen. He never asked for that. Neither did I. But we’ll always have Prague.

The SixthAxis – 9/10

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Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is captivating from start to finish, giving players more freedom to make their own choices. Controls are sublime, whether you’re massacring the enemy or avoiding them; with enough tools to make both viable options. The take on a futuristic Prague is unsettling, yet hugely immersive, together with some interesting social commentary. It’s been a long time coming, but Mankind Divided was worth the five year wait.

PC Gamer – 88/100

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Mankind Divided is a great immersive sim with some of the best level design in the series, a wonderfully rich setting, and an enjoyably diverse range of augmentations to experiment with. I just wish there was a better story holding it all together. And even though the developers clearly worked hard on Prague, the lack of a second city hub was a big disappointment for me. I would have been happy with Prague being smaller if it meant getting to see another corner of this fascinating futuristic society. The original Deus Ex is still the high watermark, but Eidos Montreal is closer than ever to reaching it. The worlds it builds are incredible: it just need to tell better stories in them.

Last Updated: August 19, 2016

26 Comments

  1. Nick de Bruyne

    August 19, 2016 at 15:18

    😀

    Reply

  2. Original Heretic

    August 19, 2016 at 15:24

    Review embargo lifted a week before release? Now that’s the sign of a game developer is confident with their product.
    And these review scores back it up.

    Deus Ex, yyyyyyeeeeeha!

    Reply

    • Kromas GG

      August 19, 2016 at 15:27

      Squeenix have been hard at work to bring back value to their IPs. I mean even Tomb Raider came out a lot better than expected (although the bar was at the bottom of the Mariana Trench).

      Reply

      • Original Heretic

        August 19, 2016 at 15:31

        Squeenix… *shudder* sounds like a squeaky wet wipe.

        Reply

  3. Viola

    August 19, 2016 at 15:36

    They definitely improved on what was already a great game , graphically it looks way better , the majority of gameplay mechanics are still the same with the inclusion of some new abilities which I like for sure .

    Deus Ex: Mankind Divided on PC is 40$ right now http://bit.do/b46WV.

    Reply

  4. Dungeon of JJ

    August 19, 2016 at 15:52

    Woo! I knew my pre-order wasn’t a mistake. Eidos knows how to get things done and done properly

    Reply

  5. Dungeon of JJ

    August 19, 2016 at 16:00

    I must say. R499 for a pre-order is a steal.

    Reply

    • Mj Khan

      August 19, 2016 at 16:41

      hey mate – who has it for 499? console or PC?

      Reply

      • Skyblue

        August 19, 2016 at 22:15

        PC, console players get raped just like they would in a cross platform FPS.

        Reply

      • Dungeon of JJ

        August 22, 2016 at 07:19

        On PC, for Steam.

        Reply

    • Skyblue

      August 19, 2016 at 22:19

      I have reservations about this… Found out earlier there is SP additions with the season pass meaning we’re about to get milked like a Mad Max: Fury Road Milk Mother and some of the reviews point out a “sudden ending” like EA asking for money “to experience what you’ve paid for but now we need more cash you dumb bastard gamer”

      Reply

      • Dungeon of JJ

        August 22, 2016 at 07:32

        That is true, but I bought it 100% subjectively 🙂 Been a big fan of Deus Ex since the release of the first one. So I can’t help myself.

        Reply

        • Skyblue

          August 22, 2016 at 14:45

          I loved the franchise since the first game and even finished the crappier ones so I’ll be buying this as soon the dust settles and I know what I’m buying.

          Reply

  6. hairyknees

    August 19, 2016 at 16:08

    I never asked for this.

    Wait, I did. YAY for ok scores 😀

    Reply

  7. Alien Emperor Trevor

    August 19, 2016 at 17:23

    Meh, reviewers. What do the influencers think!

    Reply

    • Skyblue

      August 19, 2016 at 22:25

      I have something in hand right now, being scratched, that needs a bit of influencing… hue hue

      Reply

  8. Kensei Seraph - Terran Ghost

    August 19, 2016 at 18:46

    So… I’m sitting at work, killing time while I abuse the fibre connection.
    Only about 1 hour 17 minutes until the pre-load completes.

    Reply

  9. Jonah Cash

    August 19, 2016 at 20:22

    This makes me very happy!!

    Reply

  10. Skyblue

    August 19, 2016 at 22:23

    So as usual it’s the detail that has me concerned… “sudden ending” and DLC enhancing “SP content” has me nervous as fuck about one my favourite franchises. Please prove my misgivings wrong Eidos, please!

    Reply

  11. The Order of the Banana

    August 20, 2016 at 10:37

    Nice!

    Reply

  12. Viper_ZA

    August 22, 2016 at 08:03

    Damn preorded this now on CNA for R499.00…even if I do get it late by a day or two, that’s just fine with me xD

    Reply

    • Dungeon of JJ

      August 22, 2016 at 08:04

      Worth it!
      It was a surprisingly small download on Steam. Only 19Gig, and also for R499 😀
      Moerse excited for tomorrow.

      Reply

      • Viper_ZA

        August 22, 2016 at 08:16

        Wasn’t planning on buying it just yet but the reviews look good and R499 for a physical copy just screams buy me NAUWWW! xD

        Reply

        • Dungeon of JJ

          August 22, 2016 at 08:17

          Yea it does. I made it a gift to myself 🙂 First and only pre-order of the year for me. The physical copy is going to be great though for you.

          Reply

  13. chimera_85

    August 22, 2016 at 15:05

    So the reviews are amazing so the game must be crap? Cos NMS reviews were crap and the game is amazing :-).

    Reply

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