Deus Ex

 PC
User Score
9.2

Universal acclaim- based on 1559 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,419 out of 1559
  2. Mixed: 76 out of 1559
  3. Negative: 64 out of 1559
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  1. AnonymousMC
    Aug 25, 2008
    7
    It is a good game but if you have played Half life you will be dissapointed. The graphics are outdated but not horrible. The AI are pretty good. Controls are not that great but not horrible. If you like shooting / adventure games ,get this game you wont be dissapointed.
  2. Duussstttt
    Jun 20, 2013
    6
    (Note: This review judges the game by 2013 standards rather than 2000,and was played on Realistic difficulty)

    The observant may note that in a sea of praise for this game, my review score of 6 is somewhat alone. This may be for a number of reasons--maybe I tried to play it too far past its prime as compared to others, or maybe I am more critical of its flaws than the nostalgia-goggled    (Note: This review judges the game by 2013 standards rather than 2000,and was played on Realistic difficulty)

    The observant may note that in a sea of praise for this game, my review score of 6 is somewhat alone. This may be for a number of reasons--maybe I tried to play it too far past its prime as compared to others, or maybe I am more critical of its flaws than the nostalgia-goggled mass. In any case, I would have loved to give this game a higher score, but a few key points keep it from being above average for me.

    The very reason this game is praised as an innovation (and rightly so) is why I cannot love it as others do. The choice of character development is just too skewed in the Stealth/Pistol/Lockpick builds favor. You can try to build a tank of a character that shoots all that moves with rockets and LAMs, but you will quickly find yourself out of ammo and stuck in unwinnable situations unless you take up arms in a different category.

    Be clear, I have no problem playing a thief. I did so for many years in every game I was able, and have become quite good at it. But the problem with sneaking around and being a OHKO character is that much of the difficulty of the game is cut away since no dev has been able to design a game in which multiple combat styles are available without making stealth OP (this is true even today). As such, you feel gimped as a character that specs in anything but stealth related skills (silenced handguns, crossbows, lockpicking, silenced SR's). So while the game is throwing GEP guns and LAWS at me, I am forced to ignore the more straightforward and difficult approach of nosily navigating my way to objectives in favor of crawling through yet another air duct.

    Without looking at any message boards or wikis, I guaranteethe default JC build goes something like Max Small Weapons,Max Lockpick OR Electronics, Max Rifles, one or two points in computers, with maybe a few points thrown into heavy or melee just because they were laying around.

    Augs have the same problem, with only 1 or 2 being truely useful the entire game (Flashlight, Healing) another few being situational (Fast Movement, Cloak, Lift Enviro/Bullet Protection) and everything else never being touched.

    Oh, and on the topic of weapons, they tend to be unbalanced as well. Ammo acquisition makes or breaks most weapons, which means the handgun and assault rifles should be king, however the AS is a burst fire hog that is just plain inefficient compared to a single head shot from a pistol or a swipe with the DRS. Things like LAMs are situational, but effective at any level on any difficulty, making the skill all but useless to invest into. The same can be said for heavy weapons.

    In short, I feel like my character was railroaded with an illusion of choice in a game that boasts sandbox levels in which the player is supposed to be able to play their own way in whatever style they choose.

    Now, saying all of that, the game is still great. The story has some great hooks, the gameplay is great, the variation of ways to complete objectives in revolutionary for its time, and you can tell a lot of love went into it. Pretty much all the praise you hear about this game is true, and I would recommend it to anyone. Its a definite prerequisite if you think you have any business calling yourself a fan of VGs.    … Expand
  3. overfiend87
    Aug 7, 2013
    6
    Far better than my experience on the PS2, however I find this game very hard, especially if you are new to this kind of game that gives you many, many options. You have to know what you want to specialise in or otherwise you get your ass handed to you every time. I hate the lack of a shop too, somewhere I could offload the junk I pick up to buy some new stuff would be great. However theFar better than my experience on the PS2, however I find this game very hard, especially if you are new to this kind of game that gives you many, many options. You have to know what you want to specialise in or otherwise you get your ass handed to you every time. I hate the lack of a shop too, somewhere I could offload the junk I pick up to buy some new stuff would be great. However the story itself is what it's famous for and it is quite believeable that the things that are going on behind the scenes could actually happen in a futuristic world.… Expand
  4. p360assassin
    Dec 16, 2013
    6
    I'll give this game an honest review. It's not a masterpiece. It's not unplayably bad like the vast minority says, its doesn't hold up well to modern day like the vast majority says.

    Deus Ex is a FPS/RPG that gives the player an incredible amount of choice. It's also a very ugly game nowadays with no charm in its art style. I don't factor that in because I played with the two graphics    I'll give this game an honest review. It's not a masterpiece. It's not unplayably bad like the vast minority says, its doesn't hold up well to modern day like the vast majority says.

    Deus Ex is a FPS/RPG that gives the player an incredible amount of choice. It's also a very ugly game nowadays with no charm in its art style. I don't factor that in because I played with the two graphics overhaul mods so I got fairly good textures and model quality without deviating from the original art style at all. The main problem of the art style is its going for realistic, and as we will discover with GEN 7 in a few years, that art style holds up the worst as time passes.

    The story is fairly decent, with a interesting plot about the illuminati in a cyberpunk setting. If you've played the more modern prequel Human Revolution, you'll see about the same level of storytelling quality here. However, it lacks a convincing atmosphere that saved HR from being incredibly tedious due to how slow the plot progresses in both of these games. It also lacks the length of HR. While HR is about 20 hours, Deus Ex 1 I beat in 9 and a half hours doing quite a bit of exploration.

    Then you got the gameplay. I'll give it to them devs, theres usually quite a lot of options. However, the belief there is tons more then Human Revolution is actually in most cases. Lets take its famous first level liberty island for example. You have a wide explorable (and the least interestingly designed I might add) area surrounding a destroyed Statue of Liberty. You can (and should) do some exploration around and gather supplies, then you got a sub objective. In the end, there is really only four ways to do this map after exploring. 1. Charge up the front guns blazing. 2. Sneak up the front. 3. Sneak up the back by stacking boxs to climb the shipping containers, or do the sub objective which gives you a convenient path up out of the building. Any remaining solutions are silly solutions which just waste time. Most areas are about as varied or less, and might include a diplomatic solution. Human Revolution, mocked for its lack of variety, almost always gave you two out of the way sneaky solutions, made sneaking straight through possible (note I NEVER used cloak in either games) as well as the guns glazing approach. The difference is that Human Revolution rarely had extremely bland similar areas connected to realistic but overly complex venting systems like Deus Ex which actually had nothing to the game. Melee weapons are also strange. At the start, you got about a 50% chance of a baton (the best non-lethal, and third best melee weapon over all) from knocking the guard out if you have chosen melee as your start upgrade. It will literally take about 7 hours before you get another upgrade due to early game low skill point gain, and then you will have the dragon sword. The only melee weapon able to fight high end enemies really at all without master level and even then its a stretch. Seeing as the tranq darts are literally useless, the game intentionally makes beating the game without killing nigh impossible after the first half of the game.

    People also say the game has a real sense of challenge compared to HR. This is true...until you get the dragon sword, (and this happens in the main quest) which is so incredibly overpowered that the only thing that can match it is explosive weapons, further limiting variety. HR didn't have this problem. (well if you never used typhoon or cloak like me it didn't).

    The ending is also incredibly unsatisfying. It presents three options ignoring all previous actions, and it fails at what HR did by making one significantly better for humanity then the rest (The Helios ending). HR I spent 30 minutes just sitting trying to figure out what ending to choose. I spent 3 seconds in Deus Ex 1. The endings are then just as open as Deus Ex: HR, except boring and really don't feel like endings like HR did.

    The soundtrack is so-so. Half the tracks are immediately forgettable, half the tracks are fantastic. Sadly, the ending music was the worst song in the soundtrack, making an already unsatisfying ending even worse. This is something HR did extremely well.

    Basically, what I'm saying is, while Deus Ex one has a more in-depth albeit more awkward combat system, Deus Ex: Human Revolution was just a plain more enjoyable game then the original and has an incredible atmosphere completely lacking in the original, and you should buy THAT game if you want to fulfill your cyberpunk Illuminati capitalist corruption story need, because while I enjoyed my time with Deus Ex, there is many other games I could have been playing that I would have enjoyed so so much more.    … Expand
  5. M_Alex
    Jun 22, 2012
    6
    Oh Dear. If I played this one when it originally came out, It might have been awesome. But the game didn't age as well as quake for instance did. The game is longish, and often frustrating due to its difficulty. (maybe i should have played an easier level...). The missions are longish, and instead of providing some feeling of being rewarded for your prowess they seem to be endless chainsOh Dear. If I played this one when it originally came out, It might have been awesome. But the game didn't age as well as quake for instance did. The game is longish, and often frustrating due to its difficulty. (maybe i should have played an easier level...). The missions are longish, and instead of providing some feeling of being rewarded for your prowess they seem to be endless chains of load/die/load/die/load/die/AHA!/Next room, lather, rinse, repeat. I've never been a great fan of stealth games, but this isn't i title that will convince me to the genre. THe atmosphere didn't set in, and the game discouraged me multiple times to the point that i didn't return to it for 2 years. After returning the only question was "Why am I forcing myself to play this, if it really doesn't entertain me?… Expand
  6. JonathanF.
    Nov 24, 2002
    6
    The graphics r good an' all, but it's so hard i can't even get past level 1. roll on, invincibility cheat, please.
  7. Amsheagar
    Jun 7, 2016
    7
    The story is interesting. The Ai intelligence is bad. They are foolish, but expectable for a 2000's game. I never see so much cats, rats and homeless in one game. There is praiseworthy skill system for a 2000's RPG. This game is fun.
  8. Renovatia
    Jun 5, 2023
    6
    Oh oh, I'm one of those who's very enthusiastic about this game, but due to its implementation I cannot give it a high score.

    The game looked really good in its day and now with mods (Revision) it looks still acceptable on my Windows 7 based PC. It's original as it has a deep storyline, intelligent conversations, lots of gaming-hours. You can go almost entirely stealth (no casualties),    Oh oh, I'm one of those who's very enthusiastic about this game, but due to its implementation I cannot give it a high score.

    The game looked really good in its day and now with mods (Revision) it looks still acceptable on my Windows 7 based PC. It's original as it has a deep storyline, intelligent conversations, lots of gaming-hours. You can go almost entirely stealth (no casualties), non-lethal stealth, non-lethal action, lethal action and everything in between. I went for both Deus Ex and DX2 stealth non-lethal. It was super rewarding.

    The most excellent feature was its message. Clearly this game was ahead of its time, attempting to expose governing forces bigger than us. But Deus Ex has a grand weakness and that is that the abilities you have are not very useful, especially if you go stealth non-lethal. I notice many reviewers have the same complaint.

    Next thing is that special abilities use a lot of energy and there's not enough energy re-supply available so that was totally uncool. If you know the map, i.e. having played this game before then it's obviously far easier, but going stealth non-lethal the first time is resource intensive and I wasn't catered towards this style. Almost all of my problems were solved by crouching behind a guard (crouching makes you still catch up with walking guards) and knock-him or taser him unconscious. Rarely was a special ability needed.

    You keep pushing those F-keys. Things like strength could have easily been made a passive ability, but everything you did was a drain on your resources which demanded continuous on-off switching. You feel like a beginning piano-player. It broke the immersion for me many times.

    I gave this game only a 6/10. What's the point of being special when your special abilities aren't very useful and labor intensive to use? The game is rightfully legendary for its story though.    … Expand
  9. Broyax
    Apr 10, 2017
    7
    A l'époque je n'avais pas un PC à même de le faire tourner de manière satisfaisante, alors je m'étais rabattu sur la version PS2. C'était graphiquement supportable avec un framerate plus ou moins honnête mais les niveaux étaient bien plus découpés que sur PC avec des temps de chargement importants entre eux.

    Par ailleurs, la manette PS2 n'a jamais été très maniable pour les FPS !    A l'époque je n'avais pas un PC à même de le faire tourner de manière satisfaisante, alors je m'étais rabattu sur la version PS2. C'était graphiquement supportable avec un framerate plus ou moins honnête mais les niveaux étaient bien plus découpés que sur PC avec des temps de chargement importants entre eux.

    Par ailleurs, la manette PS2 n'a jamais été très maniable pour les FPS ! toujours est-il que dans le genre infiltration cyberpunk avec une partie RPG (si l'on peut dire) assez développée, Deus Ex PS2 reste une adaptation console très correcte et un jeu agréable et novateur malgré quelques longueurs et redondances.    … Expand
  10. psylife
    Dec 15, 2022
    5
    Deus Ex is remarkably modern in terms of game design, yet it is so archaic both in terms of interface, combat, and graphics. This was true back in 2000's, and it is that much more relevant today.

    The modulable quests design and freedom of approach are two of the most refreshing aspects of the game and ahead of most modern videogame productions. Unfortunately, as an action RPG, Deus    Deus Ex is remarkably modern in terms of game design, yet it is so archaic both in terms of interface, combat, and graphics. This was true back in 2000's, and it is that much more relevant today.

    The modulable quests design and freedom of approach are two of the most refreshing aspects of the game and ahead of most modern videogame productions.

    Unfortunately, as an action RPG, Deus Ex can only hope to be as good as its combat mechanics, and that's precisely where the game misses the mark.

    If it is true that Human revolution and Mankind divided owe everything to the original Deus ex, it is also true that both these games are far superior to the original release.

    Deus Ex remains an important game, a remarkable and influential game, yet a game that is also mediocre in more ways than one.    … Expand
  11. bapq
    Feb 28, 2022
    6
    Pros: Multiple ways of playing the game (stealth, combat, mixed), great world, good graphics for its time, good voice actors.
    Cons: Could not see because the game is dark (need to go to settings to make the game lighter) which I consider is kind of a hack, no visual indication on where you should go, bad gun hitting mechanic.
  12. ProfAmateur
    Mar 6, 2023
    7
    + Many ways to get to the goal
    + Lots to explore (it's fun to get passwords to get more information or items)
    + Many locations
    + Milestone for storytelling in the game industry
    - The game has aged a bit badly (controls, graphics etc.)
    - You often run the risk of not finding your way (faltering progress)
    - The augmentations are tedious to use
    - Only English sound
  13. buddookan
    Aug 19, 2023
    5
    The game was very tedious and boring at launch. Outdated "Unreal" game engine and hopeless ideas.
    Total chaos in the story told and no atmosphere. Today, this game doesn't stand the test of time at all and doesn't live up to the standards of games like System Shock 2 and Hitman 47.
  14. F1_is_WWE
    Jun 12, 2023
    7
    Before I write a review I usually read over a few of the recent reviews so that I don't end up repeating what has already been said. One of the recent reviewers typed "combat is bad, sneaking is bad, charater building is bad, graphics are bad... 10/10" The game is so highly regarded by the gaming community that people feel compelled to give it a perfect score even though they see manyBefore I write a review I usually read over a few of the recent reviews so that I don't end up repeating what has already been said. One of the recent reviewers typed "combat is bad, sneaking is bad, charater building is bad, graphics are bad... 10/10" The game is so highly regarded by the gaming community that people feel compelled to give it a perfect score even though they see many problems with it. Game is currently sitting at 9.2/10, and it is certainly not that good.

    Everyone praises the story, but it does have a few holes in it. Your choices do not matter. You can save someone's life, you can kill "to-be" villians early on, but none of this affects the plot, which is entirely linear. Want to stop following that obviously manipulative guy telling you what to do? Too bad. Don't want to ally yourself with a cringy statnic goth-girl? Too bad. At the finale you always have the same 3 choices for an ending, Mass Effect style.

    Gunplay is awkward, but this is on purpose to try to get you to use stealth. Enemies are blind, however, and won't notice you until you reach a certain proximity. You can trigger an alarm and defeat a group of 10 enemies, but the next batch a block down the street will still be patrolling regular routine as though nothing happened. Also, the XP system encourages you to save cats so you can upgrade your radiation resistance.

    Where the game does shine is in it's level design. The levels are large and there are always multiple ways of reaching your destination, based on your skills. The worldbuilding is great with lots of little books and emails, if you like to read through that sort of stuff. And the plot itself is thrilling if you don't want to fight it, and if you don't think about it too much. It's a good game, but not a 9/10.

    --Reviewed with "Give Me Deus Ex" version    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

7
#7 Best PC Game of 2000
2
#2 Most Discussed PC Game of 2000
4
#4 Most Shared PC Game of 2000

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
90

Universal acclaim - based on 28 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 28 out of 28
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 28
  3. Negative: 0 out of 28
  1. Eurogamer
    100
    Moody and atmospheric, compelling and addictive, this is first person gaming in grown-up form, and it truly is magnificent.
    Read full review
  2. CNET Gamecenter
    80
    Oftentimes brilliant, sometimes frustrating, and always riveting, "Deus Ex" could be game-of-the-year material if not for its many glaring flaws.
  3. Game Revolution
    91
    It is, as a game, everything you could ask for... and it's absolutely a blast to play.
    Read full review
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