The wardrobes were great in Deus Ex 3. But overall Deus Ex 3 was a huge let down for many who played Deus Ex 1 back in 2000.
Deus Ex 1:
Many things that made Deus Ex 1 so special and made it an all time classic, a game that is one of the best five games ever made. The awesome story plot, the many different walk-trough paths (thousands), the inventor, the health system, the hacking, the interactive environment (breaking things, moving things ...all saved to the save file), the music, the huge levels (for 2000), ... the game is just superb (just the Unreal 1 graphics hasn't aged that well).
Deus Ex 2 was already a let down as it was geared towards the XBox1 which meant incredible small levels (there was a loading screen between every other room) and the whole roleplaying system was extremely simplified - e.g. there was only one ammunition for all weapons. Beside that it was a good game with great physics system for 2004.
Deus Ex Clan Wars (renamed to "Project Snowblind" at release) was an off-spin with a different story but similar game play (a bit more action oriented but still with augmentations and stealth). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Snowblind
Deus Ex 3 had tiny levels (Detroid was like two blocks with multiple loading screens), there were only two hub-cities and a lot of fake background to make the tiny levels look like it played in a city (Part 1 had larger levels 11 years before), the graphics was already dated on release date, the graphics were very orange in the original edition later the turned down the shader effect in the directors cut edition, the story was boring and simple in comparison to Part 1, boss fights that were implemented by an outsourcing company and felt very weird, sudden camera changes to third-person-view with one button stealth-kills and other weird design decisions that some console gamers may have liked.
For the upcoming Deus Ex 5 I hope that Warren Spector from Deus Ex 1 comes back and shares his game design vision with the team. He is literally a game design god and fame and he is currently a professor at a game design university: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Spector
Warren Spector discusses a post mortem of Deus Ex 1 and 2 in video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTWvsGA77T4 (Part of Warren Spector's Master Class at the University of Texas)
Deus Ex 1 used the Unreal 1 (Unreal Tournament) engine, Deus Ex 2 used Unreal 2 engine, Deus Ex Clan Wars used the Crystal engine (based on Tomb Raider Legends), Deus Ex 3 used the Crystal engine (based on Tomb Raider Underworld), Deus Ex 4 used Unity and Deus Ex 5 will use an improved Glacier engine (based on Hitman Absolution): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_Ex:_Mankind_Divided
Deus Ex human revolution suffered not from wrong stuff being created, but by lack of budget and time.
For example the game was supposed to have 4 hub levels (with 5 being considered once). It was going to be Detroit (that they seemly wanted bigger), Lower Hengsha (in-game as intended) Upper Hengsha (they built the city, but could not put content in it, so you see it as background art when you are inside a building that is located in Upper Hengsha), Montreal (they had to cut it off completely and in a so unexpected way that they had to do some storyline mucking-up to explain how the character get in the newspaper office in Montreal)
They considered once adding a Indian city, but that was only consideration (different from Montreal, that was written but not made in 3D, and Upper Hengsha, that was made in 3D but had no content)
They also cut lots of other random stuff, and the game kinda shows, there are lots of places that is unclear why you can't go there, or why there are some plot holes here or there, also the boss fights are obvious (and broken... since I was doing a stealth playthrough I could only win by using bugs, except the first boss, where my klepto tendencies led me to having a crazy amount of explosives...
the server-room boss I only won after the boss collision had a bug and the boss got stuck in a wall, allowing me to shoot it without retaliation, mind you, it still took 2 and a half minutes and almost all ammo in the room to kill the boss, not nice... there was that boss you can win with a knockout move, and the final boss that you could skip the entire fight by abusing a certain weapon (although probably not intended by the devs, that one they should NOT fix, because it makes perfect sense)
> Deus Ex human revolution suffered not from wrong stuff being created, but by lack of budget and time.
Isn't that true for ever game?
Deus Ex 1 also was planned to be a lot bigger. The Design documents of Deus Ex 1 and all the parts that were never in the game (like the White House level): http://www.nanoaugur.net/dx/bible/
What's so sad is that the game design team of Deus Ex 3-5 has forgotten or never read the game design documents of the first two games.
The "outsourcing" of the boss fight is just that they asked the people who made their AI middleware to program the boss fights because they were rushing to release the game. (Source: I know someone who worked for the very small company that made the AI middleware) That's also why so many areas are so small and why the boss characters aren't properly introduced.
It seems to me that the main reason for the oddness and un-Deus Ex-ness of the boss fights is actually because the three Tyrant boss fights, and to an extent the Three Little Tyrants themselves, are really modelled on Metal Gear Solid, not Deus Ex. Start with a motley crew of freakish mercenary antagonists; let the player catch glimpses of them in cut-scenes; then properly introduce each one in a boss fight in a traditional sealed boss arena, making the player fear and empathise with the boss as the beautiful doomed monster he or she is before killing them, thus ending each chapter on a note of melancholy and settling doom. Oh, and also chaff grenades are key to beating them easily.
I always felt the boss fights were so out of place in DX3 and one cannot solve the game without killing unlike Deus Ex 1 were it is possible to play through without killing a single person!
I think this paints an overly negative image of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I'm a big fan of the first game and a big fan of HR and I have played through both of them many, many times.
I would never call the Detroit and Hengsha maps "small". There's a huge amount of nooks and crannies to explore and plenty of optional side missions to undertake.
I would actually recommend that players new to the series check out HR (director's cut) first as it's a great Deus Ex experience and its graphics are holding up pretty well. I would also recommend playing HR with developer commentary on as it reveals a lot of details that you might otherwise miss. The original game, while still awesome, is really looking dated at this point.
FWIW, I don't think anyone is called Deus Ex: The Fall "Deus Ex 4". It was initially a mobile-only spinoff of HR (same aesthetics) that was later released on PC as well. It feels like a quick cash grab.
DE:HR/DX3 is a very good game for itself. But as it is the third part of a game series, the game press and players compare it to its predecessors. And all the great stuff that was in DE:HR was already even a notch better in part 1.
The Detroit and Hengsha/Shanghai maps were each about 5 maps stitched together, similar to part 1 and 2. But gaming has changed since 2000, there are action roleplaying games that are huge like Elder Scrolls (Morrowind, Skyrim, etc), Gothic/Risen, Witcher, etc that have all huge maps with usually seamless worlds packed with a lot of hand placed quests and side plots. So yes, DX1 was dense and had big maps but DX 2 and later had tiny maps with even lower density plot and stuff placed in there. In DX:HR/3 there were just a handful of NPC persons wandering around each map in cities like Detroit and Shanghai. Come on in we know better with games like the above mentioned and Grand Theft Auto, Assassin Creed or Watch_Dogs. A new Deus Ex needs bigger seamless maps with more interactive items (DX3 felt very static in comparison to its predecessors). A DX game based on e.g. the Watch_Dogs engine would be a great start.
Unfortunately many players played the first two games later when the graphics already looked dated.
Just using Metacritic to rank games is flat out wrong.
Metacritic is literally black magic, not only different reviewers have different weights based on some internal "worthiness" never disclosed, different scales are just put together carelessly and worse of all, some subjective reviews are just assigned random numbers based on the "tone".
Add this to the fact that publishers are writing contracts that define targets as Metacritic scores [0] and you get something like comparing codebases not even by SLOC, but by uploading to a proprietary web service and it then spits out an arbitrary number.
I agree that the levels are small in comparison to the original DE or something like Fallout 3, and it's certainly not a perfect game (especially the boss fights), but what DE:HR had going on was density. With a few exceptions, the game's areas are jam packed with multiple routes and options and interesting stuff to see and do. Virtually every attempt to explore is rewarded with something fun.
I recall one small-ish 3-4 floor apartment building in DE:HR that has interesting stuff on every single floor - not just a "treasure chest" or two to open, but multiple entrances, scripted events, optional NPCs and quests (some of which had multiple goals/endings and could even be permanently "failed"), traps, hidden stuff to find, plot material, enemies that you could ambush or vice-versa, concealed routes to other buildings and more, all of it conditionally accessible based on your skills. You can visit multiple times throughout the game and things will change. Certain actions could have effects on future events. Every unit had a personality and breaking into one felt like walking in on someone else's life (the memorable one for me - breaking into the drug dealer's apartment as part of an optional quest and having him come home while you're there!)
A lot of other games that tout their square mileage are empty by comparison. They give you the joy of running freely across the countryside, but the only reward is the journey and maybe something to shoot at.
As I mentioned, DE:HR/DX3 is a very good game for itself. But as it is the third part of a game series, the game press and players compare it to its predecessors. And all the great stuff that was in DE:HR was already even a notch better in part 1. So it's not an evolution, but a bit bitter sweet comeback.
Unfortunately many players haven't played the first two games or played them later when the graphics already looked dated.
The wardrobes were great in Deus Ex 3. But overall Deus Ex 3 was a huge let down for many who played Deus Ex 1 back in 2000.
Deus Ex 1:
Many things that made Deus Ex 1 so special and made it an all time classic, a game that is one of the best five games ever made. The awesome story plot, the many different walk-trough paths (thousands), the inventor, the health system, the hacking, the interactive environment (breaking things, moving things ...all saved to the save file), the music, the huge levels (for 2000), ... the game is just superb (just the Unreal 1 graphics hasn't aged that well).
Random gameplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41GmwHq6sGY
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_Ex
90 of 100 on metacritic: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/deus-ex
Deus Ex 2 was already a let down as it was geared towards the XBox1 which meant incredible small levels (there was a loading screen between every other room) and the whole roleplaying system was extremely simplified - e.g. there was only one ammunition for all weapons. Beside that it was a good game with great physics system for 2004.
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/deus-ex-invisible-war (80 of 100)
Deus Ex Clan Wars (renamed to "Project Snowblind" at release) was an off-spin with a different story but similar game play (a bit more action oriented but still with augmentations and stealth). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Snowblind
Deus Ex 3 had tiny levels (Detroid was like two blocks with multiple loading screens), there were only two hub-cities and a lot of fake background to make the tiny levels look like it played in a city (Part 1 had larger levels 11 years before), the graphics was already dated on release date, the graphics were very orange in the original edition later the turned down the shader effect in the directors cut edition, the story was boring and simple in comparison to Part 1, boss fights that were implemented by an outsourcing company and felt very weird, sudden camera changes to third-person-view with one button stealth-kills and other weird design decisions that some console gamers may have liked.
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/deus-ex-human-revolution (90 of 100, but apparently many never heard or played the first two games to have a real comparison, the game with another name attached isn't bad for itself at all)
Deus Ex 4 that was first released only for Wii and later also for PC was just bad (metacritic score 45 of 100): http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/deus-ex-the-fall
For the upcoming Deus Ex 5 I hope that Warren Spector from Deus Ex 1 comes back and shares his game design vision with the team. He is literally a game design god and fame and he is currently a professor at a game design university: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Spector
Warren Spector recently did an AMA on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/34fdjb/hi_i_am_warren...
Warren Spector discusses a post mortem of Deus Ex 1 and 2 in video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTWvsGA77T4 (Part of Warren Spector's Master Class at the University of Texas)
Deus Ex 1 used the Unreal 1 (Unreal Tournament) engine, Deus Ex 2 used Unreal 2 engine, Deus Ex Clan Wars used the Crystal engine (based on Tomb Raider Legends), Deus Ex 3 used the Crystal engine (based on Tomb Raider Underworld), Deus Ex 4 used Unity and Deus Ex 5 will use an improved Glacier engine (based on Hitman Absolution): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_Ex:_Mankind_Divided