I've only played it for a very short time now, but I like it.
Gameplay-wise it plays like pretty much every modern shooter, but the Deus Ex 'vibe' is definitely there.
Now I only played for a short time because it crashed in the tutorial mission. :(
Right at the start you get a video about 'Guards', so I watched a bit of that and decided to take the guy out. After dragging his corpse around the corner I got the message for the video again and I pressed TAB to view it again to see if it was the same video.. and the game froze.
I had to kill it via task manager.

I really like music. It reuses some material from the first game and adds a lot to the atmosphere. Which modern games are you talking about? Most AAA titles uses orchestral stuff, only indie games comes to mind.

The game is great. If you overlook technical flaws like graphics, animations and ai (there haven't been much improvement in any stealth game since Thief anyway), some cheasy characters (badies mostly) and that it's not revolutionary gameplay wise, DX3 is shaping up to be my game of the years 2008-2011.

Edit: Replace Thief with Splinter Cell if you please.

Game's effin' great. Not brilliant like the first DX but it's just really good. Don't mistake the lack of brilliance as anything bad - if anything, It feels like it's its own master while staying true to the complexity of the first game. This is enough to make me get over the disaster that is Invisible War.

TBH the game feels like a fusion between DX1 and VTMB, which can only be a good thing. I'm really impressed by Eidos Montreal - along with NV, this is one of the finest RPGs (loosely using the term RPG here) I've played in recent years. I'm still doubtful about whether they can pull off a true-to-its-roots Thief 4, but this prequel to one of the most brilliant games ever produced gives me renewed hope.

Because this is quite possibly the first, yes FIRST game to make me ignore off-putting design decisions such as no lean, health regen and 3rd person cover system. In a nutshell, I didn't miss lean that much while playing the game (even though I normally would, as I did in DXIW) because you can quickly strafe to substitute for lean; the AI also accommodates this quite well - they can still get hostile on you if you stay in their sight for too long, but if you only show a part of your face to them, they have a lower chance of recognizing you and going on full alert. In a way, the "stupidity" of the AI really works to the game's advantage.

The 3rd person cover system is optional - yes OPTIONAL - because it has tradeoffs. As mentioned above, there is a perfectly viable option to just skip the cover system and use "strafe leaning", thanks to the AI. Personally, I felt more comfortable just strafing back and forth to "peek" at enemies. Plus, the cover system makes AJ duck back slower compared to "strafe leaning".

Health regen is a really good thing here because the game is quite nicely balanced out, so that if you're caught in a firefight and get shot all over, your health only regenerates slowly and it takes forever to completely recover. In other words, it isn't a "godlike until you get hit 5 consecutive times" mode unlike many other games with this sort of mechanic.

Never thought I'd say this, but DXHR... what a game!

Not really understanding this comment, sorry. I am saying the lack of music most of the time time is what bothers me, what is there is indeed good.

Yeah exactly. I could whistle the UNATCO theme on a moment's notice, nothing like that in this game so far.

Did anyone find a decent let's play/playthrough of the game on YouTube or elsewhere? I'm looking for someone that plays the story thoroughly, takes on the nice guy role and uses stealth.

Finished the game awhile ago and I do think it is GOTY material. My biggest complaint about the game is the boss fights, and that I messed up getting the Pacifist achievement O.o

What makes the game so good but not quite as good as the original? I'm quite curious.

Playing though it now. Incredible that they have managed to pull off the feel of the original Deus Ex. The first boss battle was an absolute joke. I had more difficulty trying to get to the morgue.

I haven't played it long so far. But overall I'd say my impressions are positive. There are definitely some bugs that need ironing out. It's more of a straightforward FPS than the first one. But the gunplay is a hell of a lot better. I can't seem to make use of the cover system. But I'm not missing it.

I like what they did with the music, it's definitely Deus Exey. Creatively the graphics are very nice, but technically they've got '360 limitations' written all over them. I'm glad they've not stuck to Deus Ex's technological predictions. Those were out of date before even the first game was released. But there are still quite a few things in the game which seem like they would be outdated by then. Maybe they're subtle nods to the first game? I don't know.

So ultimately it's about as good a compromise between what's Deus Ex and what's commercial as we could have realistically hoped for.

I advise you guys to wait through the credits after you finish the game, shouldn't disappoint.

One thing I really don't like is that you can't carry more than one of a weapon type; any duplicates you pick up are turned into ammunition. This means something as simple as selling a pile of loot from a gunfight requires multiple trips. On the plus side dropped items are permanent so you can set up a stash for later retrieval.

By default you need to hold the cover key to use cover. You can change it to a toggle in the settings.

So far I haven't used it at all though; crouching achieves the same result.

Yeah, I'm not exactly missing it either.

Managed to download it yesterday sitting pretty in my steam account and have to say really enjoying the game. Does feel a lot like the original and i love the fact you are not restricted in how you go about completing objectives. Trying hard not to kill people but i think ill end up given in and shooting my way out of trouble.

Also love the music really suits the game.