PixlBit

One of the focal points, and a large source of fun, in Deus Ex: Human Revolution was the ability to radically customize your cybernetic enhancements to specialize yourself into being anything from a hacking wunderkind to a walking tank that spits out death. Unfortunately, once you had set yourself on your chosen path, it was really hard to experiment without another 60+ hour playthrough. Until the Missing Link DLC was released, that is.

At one point in the campaign Jensen goes off the grid by taking a nap in a cryo container. We were originally left to assume that it was a nice, long, undisturbed sleep, but Missing Link proves that assumption wrong. Apparently Mr. Jensen was rudely awoken during his sleep and placed into a holding chair where his augmentations were enshrouded in an EMP field. This had the fortunate result of resetting all his augmentations to factory default.

I say “fortunate” because you now have the ability to mold Jensen into any form you want in a story that takes a little over five hours to beat. Once you are broken out of your chair you will find yourself in a small area full of vents, closed doors, gas, electricity, and enemies with rapid-fire weaponry. Within half an hour you will be given seven augmentation points to begin your redesign and you should feel encouraged to break the norm. I went from my regular invisible pacifist to someone who watched bullets bouncing off of him while trying to break a record for most consecutive head shots.

Unfortunately the DLC does have some problems. The beginning of the game has Jensen in a new look that hasn’t quite gotten the polish his trench coat received. This causes the dialogue to be rather jerky and spastic, especially when you are in a third person view. There also seems to be little if any required social interaction in the game, and anyone who decides to focus on that area will probably be disappointed with the results. Finally, my achievements failed to fire even once during the DLC, but this did not happen to anyone else I asked.

While the Missing Link isn’t something essential to the campaign, it does allow you to experience an engaging chapter of that world. Plus, the ability to rapidly put together a new character build lets you have some real fun testing out all the different configurations you can imagine.