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[JCHandsom]

I think MD was trying to hammer home the influence of the Illuminati with regards to the Human Restoration Act. But in the grand scheme of things, it's handled fairly poorly. The whole Act/Nathaniel Brown context isn't really all that fascinating. Nor does it really feel like it has any impact on the player. At least, that's the way I felt about it. Others may have felt it had more significance in the plot. But it just didn't deliver for me.

It ties in with the lack of character development. If I had met Nathaniel Brown earlier and gotten some interaction with him outside the beginning of the final level, maybe I would have cared more about the Human Restoration Project and saving him.

 

[nOoblet16]

I'm pretty sure I've been stopped regardless what train I took. I actually tried taking only the first tram and there are no penalties and the checks stop after 3-4 times. Also merchants that don't want to sell you stuff don't seem so intimidating when you have mechanical arms that shoot fucking blades out of them and you can kill and rob these merchants without consequences. Instead of oppressed, the game made me feel badass, so I don't know if that's a great portrayal of oppression. I also can't agree with subtlety part of it, as most of the stuff like making you sit in the back tram are more cliche than clever.

Overall, the game felt pretty boring to me because Adam Jensen himself looked bored. He is in a city he doesn't know helping task force he doesn't want to work for, to fight the war without clear sides that's also doesn't really involve him. Up until last hours I was lacking any motivation to do any of the quests since it felt useless for the main character.

As for the ending, the mission felt more like a sidequest than a finale. You either stop one of many terrorists you don't care about or save a bunch of civilians you don't care about. This is literally the same as the tutorial level in Human Revolution.

The game makes it very clear that you are a special case. Your augs are state of the art weapons grade augs. You also have a special status that allows you to pass through anywhere (as evident from the reaction guards give when they check your ID). But it's not apparent at surface level.

And your complaint about "save people I don't care or stop terrorist I don't care about" is basically just a you problem really. Because it can be applied to any game out there where it's about saving non story NPCs. You don't have to care about them to know why Adam cares about it. It wasn't about saving NPCs because you care about them, it was about saving them so that the world doesn't continue to look at augs as threats and further reaffirm their prejudice...and that prejudice is something the game made clear a lot.

Also the checks are not random, they only happen when you take the non aug gates.

 

[Zojirushi]

Hm, I started playing this yesterday for a bit on PC and I'm honestly surprised by how underwhelmed I was by the visuals. Not sure why but I definitely expected more of a looker. Does it pick up in that department later on?

Then I got to the end of the first mission and failed the secondary objective a bunch to save that Singh dude (seemed kinda important) and lost interest for now but I hope I'll get back into it at some point.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Hm, I started playing this yesterday for a bit on PC and I'm honestly surprised by how underwhelmed I was by the visuals. Not sure why but I definitely expected more of a looker. Does it pick up in that department later on?

Then I got to the end of the first mission and failed the secondary objective a bunch to save that Singh dude (seemed kinda important) and lost interest for now but I hope I'll get back into it at some point.

There are parts of the game that look quite nice but it never stops having some rough edges. Character animations never quite look right during dialogue for example.

 

[Zojirushi]

There are parts of the game that look quite nice but it never stops having some rough edges. Character animations never quite look right during dialogue for example.

I mean it's not that it looks bad by any means. I probably just expected a lot of cyberpunky blingy shit and instead I got drab looking sandy warehouse.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I mean it's not that it looks bad by any means. I probably just expected a lot of cyberpunky blingy shit and instead I got drab looking sandy warehouse.

There are high tech areas and flashy lights. When you get to see the city at night it also looks quite nice.

 

[Audioserf]

I think the biggest difference between what X-Men does (from what I've seen) and what happens in Mankind Divided is that the X-Men are constantly being portrayed as being victims of an unjust system. I never really felt that way playing as Adam; there's no solidarity shown between Adam and his fellow augmented in the way there was within the Mutant community, only sympathy extended out of a general sense of kindness, and that's only if you decide you actually want to go out of your way to help them.

The lack of general character development also hurts this; Macready never really changes his opinion on augs from what we see, Miller never really cares about you being augmented in the first place so he never really comments on it, the one other augmented character on your team is a totally optional side character you can ignore, and Marchenko has no nuance to his motivations, no self-righteous justifications for his violent actions, no remorse or conflict over targeting members of his own people, etc. It feels like all the cruelties that are happening occur off-screen while everyone in the main story ignores it. I will say that some of the side quests do a better job in fleshing this aspect of the game out.

Character development points are legit, there just wasn't a lot of time or heart put into the plot and characters honestly, but the reason that Adam never feels like a victim of an unjust system is because he isn't.

He works for interpol, being vouched for by people in the world like Sarif who, while himself being augmented, still has a lot of cultural cachet and power. His body doesn't reject his augments so he has no need for neuropozine, which is another avenue for the system to exploit and subjugate the augmented.

The only roadblocks in Adam's way, are literally that; the way the ordinary police will stop and ask him for papers when he uses the "wrong" entrance. And it's just a bureaucratic nuisance because he always has the right papers.

It's the fact that Adam has roots in both the subjugating system and the subjugated that marks his unique position as the protag, otherwise there would be no meaningful choice to make in the game. If he was just an ordinary augmented, he'd take their side every time.