Deus Ex is finally back and with this latest release in the series, Eidos Montreal have managed to show up the rest of the industry big time. And just like its pioneering forebear back in 2000, it's an essential experience that delivers on every conceivable level.

Each sub-genre has its place in this world but when it comes to freedom of action in video games we've been seeing a continued erosion of player driven choice in recent years, with the only advances in this area restricted to sandbox affairs or multi-option dialogue screens. Developers seem content to blow their budget on the art team rather than on level designers, and while this may offer a more guaranteed return on investment, it has turned the player into an automaton, with every playthrough the same and no freedom of expression. Human Revolution is the antidote to this stagnation, the cure for corridor shooter fatigue, and if there's any justice it will be the sourcebook from which many more titles draw over the coming years.

Set in the year 2027, over two decades before the events of the first game, Human Revolution picks up at the start of an era where mechanical enhancements to the physical body are gaining great momentum, with the rich and powerful able to replace organs and limbs with stronger, more adaptable synthetic replacements. It's a game about corporate espionage, the manipulation and control of information reporting, mass unemployment, civil unrest and the growing power of corporations and private military contractors. These important issues are interwoven with a personal tale that sees the player also engaging in many small interactions that fundamentally define your character in a way that, when set against the overarching, nihilistic backdrop, make for a poignant and telling progression that steps beyond tight scripting and gives the player their own identity. Through your interactions, both inside and out of dialogue trees, there is a great amount of freedom in creating your own story to take away from the game; it isn't all handed up to you. This is helped immeasurably by conversation options that, through the main actor's thoughtful, measured performance, never stray too far to one extreme or the other and give the player enough options to never break out of the character they have created for themselves.

Ostensibly viewed from the first person perspective Deus Ex doesn't fit neatly into any one genre - it can be whatever you want it to be. If you want a straight up shooter you can have that, but if you're in the market for a stealth based game then it can offer you that style of play too. Platformer? Yeah you can enjoy it that way. Something focused on hacking? Sure, no problem. In fact any combination of the above is possible and within each of these broad disciplines there's a wealth of different ways to play based on how you have tailored your upgrades and loadouts. Say you want to take a stealth angle, you could focus on remaining in sight and minimising the sound you make, using assorted pieces of cover to manoeuvre around the opposition and make it to the exit. Or you could go down the cloaking system path, planning quick dashes directly across open areas while remaining out of earshot of the enemy. Alternatively you could focus on upgrading your lifting and jumping abilities, enabling access to new hidden routes, completely bypassing enemy held areas in the process. As you approach the latter parts of the game it gets relatively easy to max out most augmentations but a lot of players won't because, as with your character's actions, it's all about the joy of roleplaying.

And the real magic here is that no one playstyle is favoured over another, absolutely every problem and challenge in the game has several, varying solutions. It's truly fascinating to explore all the different options available to you, evaluating the respective gains and risks from each path, and it means that when you pull off a particularly satisfying evasion or execute a perfectly planned strategy the player gets a real feeling of accomplishment because it hasn't just been served up to them on a plate. Some of the upgrades will simply make things easier for the player but many allow you to explore the world in new and interesting ways and there's a pleasure to be had from just admiring how intricately constructed the levels are, trying to map all the different options available to you and seeing how expertly constructed the interconnections are. The levels are full of little incidental details and hidden snippets that either give a wider context or elaborate on events from the missions that not only help to flesh the world out but also provide a real sense of reward to exploring the maps. It's not just a game about reaching a level's exit and moving on; it's much more about relishing every aspect of your time in these locations and getting to know them like the back of your hand.

There's no finer example of this style of level design than in the two excellent hub levels, undoubtedly the highlights of the whole package. The player is dropped into these living, breathing cities full of characters, side missions, weapons dealers and all manner of nooks and crannies to poke your nose into. You could easily spend as much time in one of these as you could in some games' entire single player campaigns, exploring all the different buildings and access points, busting open each area's secrets. What's particularly fantastic is how the player is given complete freedom during these sections to do whatever they want, such as ripping off an arms dealer's crew and selling their merchandise to their competition across town, breaking into a police station armoury (and having a nose through their computer network while you're at it) or saving the body of a dear friend from the hands of scavengers and so on. You can make your own stories, behave the way you want to with no punishment, no limitations and no handholding. Human Revolution is a game where the player gets more out of it the more they put in, where exploring the boundaries and breaking the rules are encouraged and rewarded.

By the end of each section these hub worlds feel like second homes and if there's one issue with the game is that it would have been nice to have featured a third one later on to break up the longer series of more linear mission levels. Although, that's not to say that such sections lack the diversity of gameplay experience you get in the hubs in any way - they too exemplify the intelligent and comprehensively constructed layouts in every facet with the same (optional) emphasis on exploration, discovery, variety and roleplaying. The one area where the game does force the player into set encounters is at the three boss fights, during which the player must go toe to toe with an augmented super soldier. However, in each case it doesn't particularly matter what augmentation loadouts the player has opted for as the first two can be beaten relatively easily without even a single combat focused enhancement switched on, as long as you play to your build's strengths, and all are heavily signposted before reaching the encounters, including some very well stocked heavy weapons caches just beforehand.

When it comes to the visuals Deus Ex is a real looker. There are some truly standout skyboxes on display that are rendered at a very high resolution, easily on a par with Hollywood style matte paintings. Whether it's the Panchea skyline with its distant rigs billowing fire up into the Arctic sky or the Pangu skycity suspended against the red-black sunset of mainland China, each one is a genuine piece of art, at once both evocative, beautiful and also harsh. The whole world has been fleshed out with attention lavished on every facet of design from architecture to fashion, interior design and advertising. The style isn't a one trick pony either with different buildings all featuring a different aesthetic that still co-exist successfully. For example the Hive club's ceiling design of non-uniform polyhedra, dark faces lined with bright edging contrasts, couldn't be more different from the smooth curves and whites of the Picus news network and yet you can clearly see the cohesion of a unified world tying things together behind the scenes. Whether it's the recession laden decay of Detroit backalleys, the packed, bustling neon lights of Hengsha or the cold, clear beauty of an offshore research facility the world is full of these rich visual touches that fill the world with a believable, near-future character.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution nails everything perfectly and Eidos Montreal should be proud of the way they have taken such a seminal series and honoured the original vision without compromising one iota of integrity. It's a game full of freedom, exploration and meticulous attention to detail delivered with consummate styling and visual flair and coupled with superb storytelling, delving into deep, soul searching questions. By setting this third instalment before the original game Montreal have also delivered a title that can be played perfectly well by those new to the series but which also offers a fascinating insight into the experiences and attitudes of the mechanically augmented agents Denton had to deal with in the original. Some games are important because they offer interesting gameplay mechanics, some are important because they have soul. Human Revolution has both.