Jason Moyer on 23/10/2013 at 18:43

---

No discussion yet? I can't really tell if they've changed much at the beginning (it looks great, but it looked great before) but the commentary is surprisingly interesting so far.

Gothik on 25/10/2013 at 23:33

---

On UK steam the price is £12.99. However, they reduce the price by 50% if you already own DX:HR, plus another 25% off if you own Missing Link. Result - 75% off and it costs £3.49.
Downloading now...

driver on 26/10/2013 at 14:54

---

I've gotten to the bit where you break into Tai Yong Medical and I'm not seeing much change except for the obvious boss fights (Barret's 'arena' has been expanded and you can now hack some turrets to kill him, rather than just shoot him. The outcome is the same, though). The bonus weapons added in from the DLC are now properly distributed throughout the game, rather than dumped in your inventory at the start.

If you haven't played the DLC or not played it in a while, it's a must, otherwise... Well, I guess it depends if you've got some loose change rattling around on your Steam account.

driver on 27/10/2013 at 02:14

---

I just hit the Missing Link DLC, first impression was I wish they'd altered the cutscene at the start, it still has that short re-cap which seems a little jarring now that it's been integrated. All my Augs were reset as usual, but I kept my XP, which does seem like you could by-pass the reset if you don't spend your points. That said, I don't know if it removes unspent praxis points. I found my inventory stashed next to my other gear, so I didn't lose out on my souped up weapons etc. I'm hoping that they give me a few more than the 8 praxis kits you find there, though. I'd almost fully kitted my Aug suite out, so it kinda kills to have the slate wiped clean like that. ML was very generous in XP, but I doubt I'll get back to where I was once I've left Rifleman Bank Station.

:edit:

Just finished it. At the end of the ML section it dumped a shed load of praxis kits on me. I'm not sure if it was an exact match for what I lost at the beginning but it must have been close. Seems a bit ham-fisted, but it would have been a bit unfair to deprive you of all your hard earned Augs.

froghawk on 28/8/2014 at 03:10

---

Been playing this. First off, it was apparently developed using the unpatched version of the game (and it really shows), so I ended up switching to the OSX version, which incorporated more of the patches according to a Feral dev. Despite taking a performance hit and not being able to use DirectX11, it was worth it to avoid the game breaking sound bugs which I'd never experienced in the original. So yeah, the DC is buggy as hell, moreso than the original - even in the fixed OSX version, there are texture errors. The post processing (aka orange glow) isn't just reduced - it's broken and can't be turned on, which reduces the atmosphere somewhat (though it's still a gorgeous and atmospheric game).

As for the boss fights... they turned them from a frustrating annoyance to something you can easily bypass in a few minutes. Rather than removing them, they let you pretend they're not there. I guess that fixes the problem... sorta?

The Missing Link integration is pretty poor, imo, even though I just got to it. It's incredibly jarring to see the Square Enix and Eidos logos pop up in a cutscene midgame, plus a title card and recap of what you just saw happen 5 seconds ago. They really needed to redo that cutscene. Losing your augs and cramming in 4-7 hours more gameplay at that point also throws off the pace of the game. I felt like the original game already went on a bit too long with the more straightforward level-based gameplay after you leave Hengsha, since I found the hubs to be the most compelling part. The DC gives you 7-10 hours of this kind of gameplay after leaving the hubs for good, which is way too much. But at least in the original version, when you get to the Belltower base from Hengsha, it's up to you how you want to explore a pretty open area... the DLC takes away all of your augs and shoves you into some linear corridors, and to me it really feels like a different game, at least at first. Obviously the hubs are a much bigger undertaking from a development standpoint, but it would have been much cooler to see the upper hengsha or montreal sections of the game expanded with a hub - they would have avoided messing with the pacing of the ending section, and provided more of what the game is best it.

So yeah, I'd say stick with the original unless the boss fights are so unbearable that they turn you off from playing it again (which, combined with the ending, was kind of the case for me - I don't think I would have replayed this game if the DC hadn't come out). Despite all my gripes with either version of this game, I still adore it - it's very well done.