Deus Ex Human Revolution impressions

Yes, it's a stealth game. Yes, it's amazing. So far, with the new car smell and all, it's a contender for game of the year.
Stealth feels right, which is good, since going in guns blazing will get you killed, at least until you get better guns and augments.
Adam Jensen is a likable character, even when you don't control what he says. When you do, you get the tone, or answer, in the case of yes/no questions. If you highlight a tone, the gist of what Adam will say appears underneath it. This is better than BioWare's dialogue wheel, since you won't end up telling the wrong person to fuck off.
The level of detail is amazing. If you go into the ladies' room before getting your augments "fixed", the fixer guy will get a sarcastic line about it.
At the end of the first mission, a terrorist holds a woman hostage. I decided to get out my tranquiliser and tranq the hostage, confusing the shit out of him. Then i tranqed him and MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
Overall, I'm really into this game so far. After the first mission, Detroit opens up and you get SIDE QUESTS, which I've done all of. I'LL GET TO THE PLOT EVENTUALLY

After a few more days, I've noticed some more things.
You can't see your body when you look down. It's a small thing, but I was disappointed for almost a minute. I assume this is what is happening:

Another thing is, if you don't look at the achievements list, you'll likely not get a lot of them. Of course, this doesn't bother me, since I'm going to do a second playthrough regardless.
The sniper rifle is USELESS. There are literally zero chances to use it, since it's LOUD AS FUCK and can't be silenced. I opted to use the far more common revolver and shotgun, as they take up the same amount of space in my inventory. It's a shame I didn't realise this sooner, as I upgraded the sniper rifle's ammo capacity a bit before realising I never use it. I use my pistol for the same job, as it's silenced and accurate as fuck.
Also, speaking of shotguns, this is literally the third game I've ever played with a useful shotgun, RE4 and RE5 being first and second. San Andreas is arguable, as the SPAS12 is pretty nice, but by the time you get it, it's outclassed as fuck by the M4 or even the fucking AK-47.

Exploration is my favourite thing about this game. You get experience for finding hidden areas. There are multiple paths into nearly everywhere.

JAKEY'S GUIDE TO AUGMENTATIONS
ESSENTIAL:
CASIE speech app (allows you to mold people's emotions in your hands like fucking putty; also gives Malik some funny lines)
Hacking lvl. 2-5 (you NEED to be able to hack into armouries and labs)
Hacking stealth (hacking level 5 is SHIT if you get detected by the system)
Increased inventory space
Dermal armour (increased damage resistance)
Heightened lifting ability (a lot of vents are hidden behind vending machines, crates, etc.)
Icarus landing system (allows you to jump off ANYTHING and live; useful for elevator shafts)
Heightened jumping ability (allows you to jump super-high)

NICE TO HAVE:
More energy (allows you to do more spy shit; takedowns, wall-punching, etc.)
Rebreather (allows you to breathe in poison gas with no problems)
Punch through walls (some walls can be punched through, but I haven't gotten anything AMAZING because of it)
Radar upgrades (allows your radar to have a longer range and more information; not bad at all)
Reflex booster (allows you to melee takedown two guys at once; not essential but useful nonetheless)
Stealth enhancer (basically displays stealth-related information on the radar)
Cooldown timer (shows when guards will give up looking for you)
Sprint enhancement (allows you to run faster)
EMP shielding (makes EMP grenades/electricity not drain your energy; electricity still drains health)
Energy recharge rate (it recharges fast enough, and you get loads of instant recharge bars)
Sprint for longer (nice for town hubs, but useless in actual missions and shit)

NOT TOO GREAT:
Recoil compensation (I never really noticed recoil to begin with)
Arm stabiliser (Jensen's arms don't flail about when he tries to shoot like, say, RAIDEN)
Hacking fortify (I have never fortified anything ever; stealth makes this obsolete)
Hacking analyse (by the time you even consider this, you won't need it)
Flash supression (hardly anyone uses concussion grenades)

STOP CLUTTERING MY FUCKING SCREEN:
Cloaking system (makes you invisible for a bit)
Smart vision (allows you to see through walls. SHIT)
_________ silently (allows you to walk/run/sprint/jump/land/have a cup of tea silently)
Typhoon explosive system (subtlety is all but lost when you have this)

looks good

OKAY
Finished it today. No spoilers ahead, actually.
Got all four endings. The game doesn't shove your choice down your throat. It doesn't say "YOU FUCKED UP". It doesn't say "MANKIND WENT ONTO GREAT THINGS". Every ending features Adam Jensen talking about why he (you) chose what he (you) did. His in-character reasoning is accompanied by a clipshow of real people and things. This is how you do multiple endings right. You don't get to see what happens. You only get to assume. Well, since it's a prequel Deus Ex happens, but still.
Another thing, only one ending is truly pants-on-head retarded, unlike Deus Ex, where all three endings are various degrees of pants-on-head retarded.

Overall, this is my game of the year so far, if not game of the decade (2010-2011). Game of the entire console generation, perhaps? Maybe I'm overrating it. I've been known to do that. I'm gonna do a second playthrough soon, to mop up achievements and see some courses of action I didn't take.
SPEAKING OF ACHIEVEMENTS
Three of them are worth 100 points each. One is beating it on the hardest difficulty, one is beating it without killing anyone (sans bosses) and one is beating it without ever triggering an alarm. I dare you guys to get all three in one playthrough. Hell, I dare you to get 1,000/1,000 in one playthrough, with bonus points if you don't look up any guides. Reloading saves is all right.

Well, I just finished The Missing Link. tl;dr: YES, it's worth 1,200 points/$15. YES IT IS. There are ten achievements, worth 250 gamerscore (each is 20, except one). Only two are story-related, and the rest require you to INSTIGATE, INTERROGATE and INVESTIGATE (my three favourite things!!!). Also, you choose it from the menu.

Chronologically, it happens after Adam gets on the boat "to Singapore". ONLY IT DOESN'T TAKE HIM TO SINGAPORE He gets beaten up and interrogated, then released mysteriously. He is without equipment, and you DON'T get yours back. You have to rearm yourself and find/earn more Praxis kits. PROTIP: you won't get everything you want (make sure you get hacking)
Basically every weapon can be found somewhere, from the 10mm pistol to the combat rifle to the rocket launcher, every weapon has a place. I never used anything besides my pistol and grenades, sans final encounter.
The characters are all new, for better or worse. The adventure is more or less self-contained, even though it is canon, with Adam getting sent to Singapore afterward (how he gets his shit back is anyone's guess).
Also, the final encounter is nothing like vanilla Human Revolution's. You don't have to throw yourself into a combat mode with a stealth character. It's set up like the rest of the game, due to the actual HR designers making the fight (vanilla HR's boss fights were outsourced to some other company).

Also, in the vein of the game itself, there's a 70-point achievement for beating the entire DLC without upgrading ANY skills or using ANY weapons (INCLUDING grenades). HAVE FUN KIDS