Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (especially about reviews)

It pains my soul to say that I have mixed feelings about the new Deus Ex game. I love the franchise (I even liked Invisible War, though it was markedly inferior) and so I was one of the target audience for the game. And yet, despite all of that, there's a bitter taste in my mouth. Part of it comes from rough spots that QA should have patched out, like glitching through an elevator because I interacted with its control panel while it was moving. However, the bigger concern, and the one that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth that keeps me from enjoying the otherwise superb campaign is the monetization method. Some of the ways that it differs in monetization from Human Revolution are as basic as the pre-order rewards; instead of being automatically granted, they are claimed once, on one save file, ever, and if you claim them from the server then start a new game, rough luck. This makes no economic sense, since no one can just buy the preorder bonuses (yet), but is aggravating to players, at least one of whom has complained that his game crashed after transferring resulting in NO preorder bonus gear. (The cosmetics, missions, and out of game extras don't follow this stupid system, I think.) Breach mode feels like a tacked on F2P game, with it incessant need for the player to buy more boosters, ammo, and modifiers to hit the absurd challenges for score and time (one boss fight has a time of 9 seconds, while with a grenade launcher I managed to not kill him with five rounds in about 20 between getting in position and aiming, and one of my shots detonated on my cover killing me and eating my ammo for the run) while reminding you that you could get "premium" weapons and booster packs with Real Money TM. It doesn't belong as half of a $60 game, much less one that could have used a bit more QA budget.

All that to say, I like the campaign, and I do enjoy it, but the launch makes me think that Square/Eidos thinks its customers are idiots who want to pay to play twice.

Link to review on Steam.