Before I get started, I have to state, that I'm not as big of a fan of DE1 as many of you are here. I'll try my best to review HR as if it were a standalone, but making comparisons with the original is unavoidable.

When I look back at my time with HR, I realize it's a game, which is greater than the sum of its parts, because ... let's be honest here, the gameplay is not stellar by any measure: cover shooter mechanics, stealth mechanics combined with stupid AI make for a very easy stealth approach, simplified RPG mechanics (especially very few activables), non-reactive world. All of these, on paper, wouldn't interest me that much, but it all meshes well, and combined with great and properly explored theme, interesting and somewhat deep characters as well as probably the best level design I have seen in quite some time, it makes a very great experience, that I wanted to get back in over and over again.

So then, let's take it point by point:

The theme. It's great, transhumanism wasn't ever aproached with such depth in a video game before, and that's quite the achievement. But, I felt it was mainly social/political commentary, and not enough philosophy for my likes. I mean, the morality of it was discussed, the political, economic and equality aspects of it were explored, but the philosophy of it wasn't, the way it changes our own self-image, our inner working, how it changes what human means ... etc. All that wasn't discussed enough. It beats DE1 hands down in this department.

The narrative was great, up until the last 100 meters. Major fuck up at the end. I just couldn't believe it, what a fuck up it was. I loved uncovering the conspiracy, it was very well crafted, if you read everything, and put the picture together, you were always ahead a few steps, than if you had just followed the main storyline, and uncovering it was a pure joy. As for the story itself, I think it was good, although Adam being the source for the DNA was very predictable. From the beta version, that I tried, I knew for sure, that either Adam was X or Adam and Megan had a fetus, that Adam didn't know about, and that was X. Also, I knew Megan was alive, the way the articles about the investigation were worded gave it away, but I was never sure, and kept guessing. I don't feel the story was corny or cheesy in any way, it was a pretty mature conspiracy, and would have been great, if it wasn't for the fuckup at the end with Darrow and the zombies. That felt very forced, very tacked on, and simply, not subtle, like the rest of the game. I'll get back to this later. All in all, uncovering the conspiracy was better in DE1, but then again, that's all DE1 had going for it, while HR had the great theme.

The world: Great. Huge attention to detail, loved the exploration, heck, it's the most enjoyable aspect of gameplay. Discovery. Finding that hidden Stun gun ammo never got old, even though I had like 80 at the end. And then discovering an e-mail or a hidden pocket secretary containing some lore, felt awesome. I crawled through every vent, moved every box. I never was as thorough as this before. The level design is great, many paths, many things to discover, also felt realistic and not forced. Also, while technically, the game didn't look as good, it completely made up for it, by having environments, that really looked, like people work/live there. I have never, ever seen this done so well. The one thing I didn't like about the world is, it didn't reflect upon your choices. And RPG needs deep C&C, and I feel this is a major shortcoming.

The history/setting was very nicely developed, and you could really understand many things. I loved the fact, that many documents explained how certain things worked technically, and this gave it a hard sci-fi feel, this is so very fucking rare, at times I felt like this game was the equivalent of reading a Stanisław Lem book in the videogame universe.

Characters: I loved the characters, they had great dialogue, and some of them were really round characters, with realistic motivations. Some of the characters had true character arcs, but at the end of the game, I didn't feel closure with many of them ... I wish I had more time to discuss with Megan, with Sarif, with Darrow and with Pritchard as well, tbh. Sarif was by far the best character, I chose his path at the end, and would chose that too, if I had to make such a choice in real life. And now let's move back to the huge fuckup of the game: Darrow

So here is a man, who I knew was behind all, that is happening, quite a few hours before his "reveal" at the Panachaea, yet when it happened, it was clear, that it doesn't fucking add up. His motivations don't make sense, and it for the first time in the game, felt like his actions took place to move the plot forward in a forced way, and not because that's what a character like Darrow would actually be like. I mean FUCK. Such a missed opportunity, and I was so fucking curious, what talking to Darrow, the father of augmentation would be like, heck, for two levels straight I anticipated the moment, and then it was such a letdown.

The man, who is extra rational, did so much for the world, now has a plan to stop global warming, a man of true vision decides to do such a drastic thing so fast, throwing away all his hard work, all of his effort to saving mankind, just because he can't get augmented himself?! (and partly, because he thinks this technology can be used to subdue men by the powerful). It turned a great potential character in to a weak vessel for flawed social commentary, and to remedy it, they tried to make an emotional angle as well, which came out as a weak copy of Unbreakable's Mr. Glass. Royal fuckup. I mean as a scientist, he should know first and foremost, that technology doesn't have morality, people have morality, and people can/will use technology for bad, but the solution is not the elimination of technology, but elimination of the "bad" men. Every scientist, that I have talked to, and I have talked to a fucking lot! shares this opinion, and I expect the world's greatest scientist to know it as well.

All in all, Darrow was a plot vessel in the end, and not a real character, and that broke the game for me. He was rushed, he was trivialized and simplified. This game could have been the game of the decade, and this is where it slipped.

the very fact, that you can convince him of the need of stopping his plan shows, that it wasn't a solid plan to begin with, and he had so much time to come up with it, either he's gullible, which we know he isn't or he's just a plot device.

Furthermore, a plot hole: one of Darrow's main argument against augmentation technology was that it could be hijacked, used for bad. Yet he had complete control and power over those, who would use his technology for bad, yet what does he do? Does he stop the corrupt men, or does he himself use the technology for bad, which basically creates a self fulfilling prophecy ... that he wanted to avoid to begin with.

Once again just thinking about it pisses me off, what a missed opportunity.

I too had no idea what was going on in the last boss battle. It felt very rushed...actually the entire ending felt rushed. Plus the Namir fight was crap for me. I assumed boss fight was coming up, and event though I never used it I equipped the grenade launcher and he was dead in 3 seconds (that's on hard difficulty)

Perhaps not entirely unlike Adam being somewhat engineered himself.