Talk:Deus Ex: Mankind Divided/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Hahnchen (talk · contribs) 21:51, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

This is a good article, comments below will take the article beyond GA. I completed the game in January, and am working through some of the DLC, so it's fairly fresh in my memory. I'm familiar with the series and the genre, so this is an informed review.

Lead

 * No need to mention Praxis. Experience, customization and progression is enough without in game terms.
 * "Choices" in conversations, as opposed to "options", reads better.
 * Setting for Breach irrelevant for the lead.
 * Remove "this prompts heated debate and". You already reference the controversy, and it's apartheid, it's going to generate debate regardless.
 * "Eidos Montréal wanted to improve its gameplay and narrative, and address criticism from fans and reviewers of Human Revolution." - this says very little. It's fluff. Why wouldn't any developer want to do this? As an aside, they completely failed with the narrative, which was stupid as fuck.
 * Don't use the term "next-generation". The next-gen changes, so specify the gen.
 * I don't think you need to talk about controversial marketing slogans and preorder schemes in the lead. It offers very little without context. If you want to mention it, I would be explicit and say that writers felt the term apartheid and aug-lives-matters were used in poor taste.
 * It's not speculated that the series is on hold, it is on hold. As per the "Future" section sources, there is no Deus Ex development.

Gameplay

 * Why not use the term immersive sim to describe the genre? You quote the term in the reception section, but it is not linked.
 * This section would be better rearranged. Talk about Adam's basic toolset first, such as shooting, sneaking and hacking. And then talk about upgrades and overclocks. Right now, you jam augments and upgrades in the middle.
 * I don't think conversation is about having correct and incorrect options. Some choices may fulfil objectives, and others may not, but they are all true to the player character. Maybe the player just wants to say fuck you, I don't think that's incorrect.
 * Give more context to Breach mode, as established in the lead.

Synopsis

 * Cut down on the Human Revolution paragraph. You just need to establish what the Aug incident was, not what Darrow was doing or where Panchaea is. Neither is important to the game. Be explicit that it was a violent incident.
 * Explain that Golem City is a ghetto for augs.
 * Jensen is not involved in a bomb attack, he is injured by one. Which he then investigates.
 * Two leads to confront Marchenko. And why is Alison's description in brackets unlike every other character?
 * While you cannot the plots of side missions, you should note that they exist to flesh out the world in greater detail.

Development

 * "About where the narrative was supposed to go," - delete this.
 * "Discussing the game design of Mankind Divided," - delete the entire sentence, someone saying they want to take the game to "the next-level" is of no value.
 * You say very little about the level design and and the world-building. You spend more on Jensen's coat?! The autodesk reference is very good. See also (slides)
 * Reference the page number in the Autodesk reference. It's 28 pages long.
 * Breach mode - if you use the term "live" team, you need to explain what that is - games as a service etc. I don't think it is important.
 * Technology - First two sentences confusing. Second sentence begins with "it" which could mean the game. It may be better to describe Dawn as a fork of Glacier 2. Drop the word "in-house".
 * Reading the reference, it isn't that Glacier offered more extensive tools than CDC, but that Glacier's toolset was more suited for the demands of a game like Human Revolution.
 * Keep the technology section about technology. About the tools and the middleware used to create the game. Looping the streets, or environmental design has nothing to do with technology and should belong in the design section.
 * Move the PC development info from the release section into the technology one.
 * You reference Sacha Dikiciyan's previous works, but not that of Ed Harrison. The Neotokyo soundtrack is a masterpiece.

Release

 * The word apartheid is not associated with racial segregation in South Africa. It literally is racial segregation in South Africa.
 * Criticism of the micro-transactions should be in the Reception data.
 * How is the related media related to Mankind Divided, and not just Deus Ex in general?

Reception

 * This section is shorter than I expected given the overall length of the article. Yet a lot of it is not very good.
 * You've introduced every reviewer into the story paragraph in alphabetical order of the publication title. This is very forced and obviously poorly considered. You should be introducing the most pertinent critiques of the story in this paragraph, even if it doesn't appear in the reviews template. Cut any dreck such as IGN describing the plot as "well produced", which means nothing to anyone.
 * I don't like how the section always uses reviewers names, they mean nothing to the reader. Without looking at the article, who is Nicholas Tan, and why would you give a shit about his opinion? The reader is forced to jump back and forth to where the writer is first introduced. Just use the publication name. If you think it's inaccurate that a publication has an opinion (I don't), you can use sentences like The Gamespot review...
 * I think the presentation should get more weight, given how much they put into Prague and the environments.
 * It'd be interesting if you could source a Czech language review of the game from LeveL. I wonder what they thought of Prague.
 * Don't use such short quotes. 'Kelly praised the graphics and called the level design brilliant' is fine as a sentence. 'Kelly praised the graphics and called the level design "brilliant"' suggests air quotes.
 * A single high level sentence about Breach mode is not enough. This is an interesting piece on the Breach feedback from the developer.
 * Very little on the DLC. Each story DLC had separate reviews in many publications. I've not really addressed DLC coverage in this article, but my recommendation is that you split out the DLC into a separate article, and give the development, plot and reception coverage it deserves. Cutting the information from this article would make it better.
 * Sales - the lack of sales isn't because there were more PS3s than PS4s. It may have contributed to it, but it isn't the sole factor.

Future

 * Just say that the series isn't cancelled despite no one working on it. That they could return to it with staff an inclination is fluff.

Mostly completed review. May have further later in the week. - hahnch e n 00:36, 20 February 2019 (UTC)