Pre-ordered it and picked it up today. I've never played the previous one and I don't feel as if I'm missing anything story wise thus far into the game. The gameplay is really solid, I love how you can switch from a first person view and then to cover, adds a nice layer of strategy to a lot of fire fights. Though the graphics aren't spectacular there is smooth dark/light art direction and rooms are filled to the brim with objects and other nice little touches that makes the world of Deus Ex engrossingly believable. The game defiantly has its flaws, like the rudimentary chat options and some of the cutscenes seemed out of place and broke up the game flow a bit for me. Haven't gotten super far into it but I'm having a blast.