The year is 2027, and humankind has manufactured the next branch in the evolutionary tree. Body augmentations give us superhuman strength and abilities, allowing us to bend light, see through walls and much, much more. This wondrous technology has a dark side though, controlled by mega-corporations who keep the globe's citizens on a chokingly tight leash, thanks to the highly addictive drugs necessary to stop our bodies rejecting the alien metal from our flesh.

In Deus Ex: Human Revolution, you're employed by one of these corporations as chief of security, equipped with the best biomechanical technology money can buy. Over the game's 20-hour storyline it's your job to use these implants to uncover a conspiracy spanning the globe, and it's up to you to decide how to go about it.

Thanks to exceedingly clever level design, the game always presents you with multiple options to complete the missions on offer. Say you're tasked with retrieving data stashed deep within a hostile corporation's facility: do you go in all guns blazing, using reinforced skin armour and robotic arms to steady the aim of your powerful rifle? Or do you equip yourself with thermal vision to monitor guard positions through walls, slipping stealthily through the air-duct system? Perhaps you'd prefer to hack into the building's security set-up, turning the auto-turret system against its occupants?

The choice is entirely yours, and it's this flexibility that makes Deus Ex: Human Revolution one of the year's finest games. It's helped in the quest for Game of the Year status by one of the most richly realised environments we've ever explored, packed full of people to talk to and places to discover. Fans of Blade Runner will immediately recognise the iconic film's influence on the set design. For a game that revolves around giving the player choice, in the end you really don't have any say at all over whether or not to buy Deus Ex: Human Revolution. You simply must.