With 50 Hours on DX:MD, DX:HR and a lot more on DX and even a considerable amount on DX:IW I though I'd write a full review.
Tl;dr
Engine / Environment / Graphics: 7/10
Combat: 7/10
Music: 6/10
Characters: 5/10
Story: 5/10
Engine 7/10:
For those that do not know, or are not interested, Deux Ex Mankind Divided runs on the Dawn 2.0 Engine, providing large, rich environments with beautiful lighting and textures. It allows the game maps to be a lot larger than you would typically see in most other engines, including the Crystal Engine that Human Revolution was based on, requiring numerous loading screens which could break immersion.
The high score can be attributed to the lack of loading screens, the size of the maps as well as the amount of assets that can be included. It loses points here for what can only be assumed to a lack of optimization, causing low frame rates and performance issues on high-end gaming rigs.
However, I do not feel that the engine provides fluid control of the character, it feels stiff and rigid whilst moving. Although a massive step up from Human Revolution, running around feels sluggish, when compared to the Source Engine (Half Life series) or the Unreal Engine (Deus Ex 1). Unreal Tournament (Unreal Engine 4.0.) has much more fluid movement and I don't feel like I am running around in sludge constantly.
Combat: 7/10
The combat in this game was definitely improved from Human Revolution, but loses points on the basis that some weapons feel "plastic", there is no standard Melee option or weapons apart from using your takedown ability, and the AI is still complete trash. I felt more pressure from scripted AI Nodes that run in straight / diagonal lines from Unreal Engine 1.0 when 10 MJ12 troops are storming down on your position or your dealing with an MIB that explodes and will damage you if you're in close proximity.
There are not really any enemies in this game that put you under pressure where you feel like you are going to die, that makes your heart race. As with HR, you can literally camp and win by hiding at the furthest corner of the room and one shotting everyone in the head, or simply cloak past them all. In Dues Ex robotics could still see your "heat" if you cloaked, there were 2 seperate Augs for cloaking, and I think that would immediately make the mechanics of this game more difficult if you can't simply cloak through lasers, bots, turrets and cameras. Personally, as in DX1, I think the Augs need trade-offs, you can cloak from Organics but not Automated or vice versa depending on your choice and play style. The Glass shield cloaking with a ridiculous amount of available biocells is just cheese mode if you want to play a stealthy game.
Deus Ex 1 still wins on combat for me, and that is a 16 year old game.
Music: 6/10
The soundtrack is good, but far off great this time around, but lacking from Human Revolution. I don't think they played Sascha to his strengths, he has done some great scores, Quake 2 being among one of the most amazing soundtracks for a game of all time. Michael McCann once again delivers an amazing score, but it also seems to be in the shadow of Human Revolution.
What I miss from DX1 what made this game truly unique, was the 5 individual tracks for the area you were in (Ambient, Combat, Conversation, Death, Transition), whilst I do enjoy the 3 prong approach (Ambient, Suspicious,Combat) I do think an approach to the score similar to DX1 would be a huge improvement.
Alexander Brandon produced some amazing music for Deus Ex and Unreal Tournament 99 back in the day.
Characters: 5/10
Apart from some main characters which seemed to have a lot of detail, it feels like the Deus Ex Revision mod here. Some characters look polished and updated, whilst others faces look low-poly and poor quality. Graphics asside, there isn't really any emotion or attachment to any of the characters here, (more detail in the story section) but they are essentially all rigid, with poor animations and even worse lip sync. It breaks the immersion and for a AAA game it's just terrible. What was the 7 month delay for, Square Enix talks about high standards but the most obvious problem, in a game that contains as much dialogue as this, how did that get through testing?
Even games where the characters just open and close their mouths like fish along to their lines is much better because at least it seems like they are doing it on time with what they are saying.
Story:
The biggest disappointment, Deus Ex is a game played for lore, exploration, story telling, the conspiracy, yet I feel like I've played an extended chapter of reaching Lebedev on his Jet in DX1. That's how deep the story goes, from Liberty Island to Lebedev, it's the Deus Ex Limited Edition Scandal by Activision all over again, paying full price for an incomplete game. Where is the rest of the story, it really hasn't developed or fleshed out any of the main characters.
There is no emotional involvement with anything, I care no more or less for the augs than when I started, if you wanted to be controversial and delve into what the title is suggesting, mankind being divided, then you should have gone full tilt. Instead it comes off as weak and childish, like you were too scared to push some boundaries in fear of criticism, yet you were criticized anyway for using Apertheid and other terms in the game.
I think the next part of the lore needs to delve deeper into the conspiracy, it is ok to create more questions, but you also have to provide some answers and explanations to things too. It's like Adam isn't too bothered about these after market augmentations, it's also like he blacked out and didn't remember much from Panchea, there is little reference where he brings up the truth, like he can not be bothered to bring it up, other than a few dialogue options here and there.
The introduction of the Juggernaut Collective, TF29, there isn't really much of a backstory, and without adding any spoilers the story is only strikingly fleshed out here and there in dialogue but never focused on enough to actually explain anything properly.
As a side note, whilst Prague is huge, with lots of verticality and places to explore, I feel the "Mission" areas are especially limited.
DX1 is a great example of balancing hubs and active combat and story, you had Hells Kitchen, Hong Kong and Paris to explore, as well as numerous mission areas that helped fuel a great sense of progression. I understand the scope and size of these new environments, plus the development time required now compared to on the older engines is completely different, but it would be nice to see the story expand within different areas and environments, HR had a better balance in this respect and although alot of DX:MD was larger, I felt like there was more to do and more going on in DX:HR.