Recent reviews by theste

I first bought this upon release and promptly got a refund. I recently picked it up again (on sale) and decided to give it another go. It's still not ground breaking or close to what they originally promised, however, I will say it is now a really good game. I did encounter the odd bug (floating cars or NPCs, occasional audio not working - but nothing 'game-breaking'). The story alone is exceptional and I will say there is an insane amount of content and it does all feel incredibly re-playable. I completed the game (did try multiple endings too) before returning to complete the side-gigs. All of which have been enjoyable and very immersive.

If you enjoy a strong narrative and a well told story you will enjoy this. Don't expect your life choices to be quite as 'game-changing' as advertised - they tend to just offer additional dialog or one or two additional routes when doing semi-related jobs.

We're not quite on 'No Mans Sky' levels of redemption. But it is now a good game and worth picking it up. Especially for they frequent 50% off price during most sales.

TLDR:
- Painfully slow game play
- Strayed too far from the genre that made the franchise popular
- Over complicated systems with a UI that doesn't really provide much feedback or 'clear' guidance
- The team made some very 'questionable' design decisions

I've loved and played the Dune games to death. Unfortunately this one lands a bit too far off the mark for me. I love the lore and visual styling of the game, it looks great. But I think they should've tried to get a bit closer to the genre that made the franchise so successful/popular. Perhaps even taking some ques from Northgard - I think that might have been the happy medium.

I found the game play itself painfully slow. The interface and in game controls aren't especially intuitive and any guidance given isn't clear. The quests that I assume are there to teach you the basics fail to communicate exactly how to do whatever it is asking you to do and I was left hunting for buttons or info on how to do stuff. There is very little feedback to let you know if you're doing something correctly or not - even simple tasks like moving units around.

Also, I really dislike the unit scaling. Towns are really small, refineries are the same size as the towns. Your units are giants and 10x the size of towns. The worms are either big enough to swallow an entire town OR about the size of a horse when compared to your units... Doesn't affect game play at all, but it's just a styling decisions/direction that I personally hate.

I'm not going to say this is a bad game. I personally wouldn't really class it as a 'Dune' game as it has strayed too far from the true RTS style that made it so popular. If you prefer the slower Civ style games then it might be for you. But if you're expecting a 'Dune' game, then I think you'll be disappointed.

I will be following the development and jumping back in from time to time to see what changes have been made - but at this stage, I don't think it's one for me.

Cracking game. Love the overall atmosphere. I think I'd prefer slightly more realistic graphics but that's personal preference. Fun little story and game play is fun even if a little short.

Loved the Deus Ex games, especially HR but this is awful. I found the interface and UI incredibly unresponsive and had real trouble with it. The tutorial should be skipable because that was infuriating and the whole feel of game really was miles away from HR and the previous Deus Ex games. This is a port and a remarkably bad one at that. I would avoid this, especially if you enjoyed HR.