Bad Boss. Bad.

I got to the infamous boss fights of Deus Ex: Human Revolution this morning. I can see why people were getting so frazzled by them. Deus Ex is a game about choice, and that idea permeates every fiber of the game. In that context the very nature of a boss fight makes no sense. In a game all about exploring your options and subverting dangers, a mandatory battle with a vastly stronger opponent just doesn't fit. This particular Boss, however, goes one step further in removing itself from the spirit of the game.

Deus Ex offers you any of a dozen different augmentations that unlock unique abilities such as hacking, heightened jumping, super strength, enhanced takes downs, powers of persuasion, cloaking, moving silently, faster sprinting. And every one of those powers opens up different avenues and possibilities for you to decide how you want to overcome each challenge. None of those potential options are expressed in this first boss fight. There are no places you can hide from him, no terminals to hack that give you advantages, you don't talk to each other, there's no higher ground to climb up to, and you cant even get close to him and use your take downs.

What you have when you go into the fight, is a man with a minigun built into his arm that can kill you in pretty short order and a seemingly unlimited supply of frag grenades. You have to engage him on level ground, with limited cover, and the only weapons you can use are the guns that you might not have used the entire game (if you don't carry any with you then you only have what they supply you with in the fight area).

I understand that the developers outsourced the boss fights, which might explain how the fights could have been so removed from the context of the game. But honestly, does no one play these things before they ship?