Enlarge / Wanna get more in-game currency, weapons, and experience-point boosts in the new Deus Ex game? Pay up, suckers. (credit: Square Enix)

My review of the stellar cyberpunk stealth-adventure game Deus Ex: Mankind Divided was based on a retail version, which means it had received a “day-one” patch and contained all of the game’s content… with one exception. The microtransaction system hadn’t yet gone live.

At the time, this shop was limited to DX:MD‘s “Breach” mode, which combines arcade-style challenges and a “card-unlock” system for beefing your character up. This system works similarly to games like Hearthstone, in that you earn new cards and perks through normal gameplay, but since their rewards are random, you may feel compelled to pay money for more random-card unlocks. Also, because you can only equip so many perks at a time, and normal gameplay unlocks a ton of content, you don’t really need to pay into this system to get the full game experience.

It’s not ideal, but I ruled that this kind of microtransaction system was all-in-all tolerable for what was essentially a free bonus mode on top of an already-huge campaign in the retail package. Looks like Eidos Montreal had other ideas, however.