The year is 2027 and a battle is raging between scientists--who are largely in favor of new developments in human augmentation--and members of the anti-augmentation terrorist group Purity First.

The playable prelude to the game shows us how Adam Jensen, a security specialist at Sarif Industries, is viciously assaulted during an attack on the laboratory and only escapes death by being revived and heavily augmented. Six months later he’s back in his old job and once again trying to prevent attacks against Sarif Industries, but during one such attack, we begin to see that all is not quite as it seems.

There's no need to go all-out guns blazing. Talk to people. You never know what you might learn.

What looks like a first-person shooter is actually a much smarter, more complex game. Indeed, Deus Ex’s balance of role playing, exploration, action, and stealth is superbly handled. Once the game begins to open up, after the linear prologue, you begin to get an insight into the scope of the story and your place within it. You can chat with almost anyone, and many characters have useful information; others will provide you with missions that drive the main story or ask you to run errands or side quests through which you can discover interesting story arcs and gain experience, which is crucial to success.

As you get more experience and earn Praxis Points, you can use them to buy augmentations, a bewildering array of cybernetic enhancements that improve your physical attributes, combat, stealth, and ability to hack into systems.

There’s plenty of action to be had, although it’s pretty much up to the player what flavor it takes. It’s perfectly possible to enter a facility and achieve your aims stealthily, taking out enemies with silent kills and so on. But equally, if you want to kick the door down and let your weapons do the talking, you can.

Stealth attacks are quiet...but no one said they weren't going to get messy.

The lack of ammo is the game’s only serious flaw insofar as a cautious approach has to be adopted, which can be a little stifling. The option to let off steam with a no-holds-barred killing spree would have been welcome. But that would perhaps destroy the delicate balance of things.

The bottom line. This is a tense game, with an ever-present sense of danger, and an atmosphere in which the careful, considered gameplay fits perfectly. The Ultimate Edition contains the base game, all previously released downloadable content, and bonus material, making the Mac the Deus Ex fan’s new platform of choice.