Awesome / Deus Ex: Human Revolution

• Let's be honest: Adam Jensen is a walking fountain of these. One of his most regularly used takedown attacks is punching through a wall to get to his target.
• Anytime you successfully Ghost a level. They never knew you were there.
• The Takedown moves. A taste.
  • Here's one for the record books: Adam Jensen in Zhao Yun Ru's penthouse with Quicksilver Reflex Booster plus a fistful of concussion grenades and a Cyberboost Proenergy Jar equals Curb-Stomp Battle.
    • Jaron Namir here. Spam the takedown button juuust as he mantles a wall and it's a One-Hit KO. In the Director's Cut, time it just a he decloaks after throwing a grenade and you can lay him out with ONE PUNCH.
• The "social boss battles" in general but especially these:
  • The first battle against Zeke Sanders, especially given the fact that at this point you (probably) don't have the CASIE aug: you're literally arguing with someone based entirely on your own personal ability to read their actions, body language and personality without any of the assistance like the persuasion bar or the personality summary. Talking down a hostage-taker with no assistance while the hostage is sobbing and crying and the unhinged criminal keeps periodically jabbing his gun into the hostage's head is one of the most intense experiences - and most rewarding when you win.
  • The battle against David Sarif, where Jensen can make his own boss confess and deeply regret an unknown transgression against the former that ended up contributing to the current mess.
  • The battle against William Taggart where you confront him about Humanity Front's involvement in the attack on Sarif Industries in the middle of a live televised press conference. This is especially awesome if you managed to convince Taggart by accusing him of being no better than Sandoval (who has been revealed to have helped with the previous attack on Sarif), which will make Taggart angry enough to nearly have a violent outburst (which would have affect his reputation due to the fact that he is, to the public, always composed) before he can regain his composure.
  • The final battle against Hugh Darrow, where Jensen can win a debate about the nature of mankind and it's future against a billionaire, Nobel-Prize winning, literal super-genius of a man. Who has talked himself into turning augmented people into insane monsters because he's been so broken and jaded by his time in The Conspiracy that he's convinced himself he'd rather prefer his life-saving invention and life's work be forever reviled and hated by the world than have it be irrevocably constricted and abused by the Illuminati. And not only does Jensen change his mind about his pessimistic and fatalistic views set in his old age, brought upon by a long life of despair, He convinces him to instead help HIM and set things right.''
    • Made into an even bigger Moment of Awesome if you have the CASIE. Jensen, using his enhanced intuition, realises that Darrow's Freudian Excuse is really that, an excuse, and his true motivation behind his plan is the reveal that he is genetically incompatible with the very augmentation technology he invented, and he's come to violently resent the world because of it. He then proceeds to mock the old man with it and how petty it is until he breaks down.
• Seeing your instincts about the biochip pay off in a cutscene where Zhao Yun Ru attempts to subdue you via it and watching it do you no harm whatsoever, and the catharsis of seeing the Smug Snake slowly go from overconfident arrogance to absolute terror when it becomes clear her trump card over Adam is a bust. Made even better by Jensen's Ironic Echo.
  Adam Jensen: Women never fail to underestimate men.
  • Or winning the following fight despite a horrible Interface Screw and a complete lack of augmentations. ANY of them.
• Saving Malik from the ambush is one. However, when escaping from Omega Ranch, she returns the favour by dropping a bomb on the seven Spec-Ops soldiers waiting to kill you on the landing pad.
  • Saving Malik from the ambush, without breaking pacifist conduct, takes a lot of effort, but is Awesome when you finally succeed.
• Convince Hugh Darrow to help you at the end game and sucker punch him afterwards.
  • Just convincing him period counts as one on it's own. You talked down an actual genius!
• At the very end of the post credit scene, when the secret achievement pop-up and this music start to play.
• Malik's idea of street justice. When her friend dies by being murdered by her boyfriend and you get confession out of him, she has Jensen hack a panel that lets her plaster his name, personal information, and a video of the confession on the walls of the Hive bar.
  Adam: Malik, remind me never to piss you off.
• Don't even try to deny the feeling of elation and satisfaction when you hear these four words: "Any time, fly girl."
  • Especially if you managed it on a pacifist run. On hard.
  • If the above isn't enough, then this certainly will be. "Achievement Unlocked: Good Soul. Against all odds, you saved Faridah Malik's life."
• There's a very fun and satisfying way to beat the final stage, as there are many unarmed zombie-like enemies- just make sure to stock yourself up with battery replenishing candies and jars from LIMB clinics and buy the reflex aug that lets you perform double takedowns.
  • Alternatively, if you've been carrying the PEPS this far through the game, you now have an incredibly effective, efficient, and satisfying method of non-lethal crowd control at your disposal.
• The Heroic Sacrifice ending. There's just nothing quite so empowering like saying "screw you" to Darrow, Sarif, and Taggart and leaving what happens to the augmentation market to the people.
  • Heck, even Eliza seems to agree that with this ending. The other three endings have her say "So be it, then" in a resigned tone. The above ending? "We have little time left, Adam. And might I say, it has been a pleasure..."
    • Somewhat undercut by the fact that the rest of the Illuminati are still out there. Oh, and the station you're destroying has hundreds of innocent people in it.
• Listening to some of the NPC chatter in The Missing Link makes it clear just how much of a badass Jensen is. One NPC will even point out that half the base is scared of Jensen, especially if he's been running around killing everyone.
  • Even if you're doing a total stealth Pacifist Run, they're still terrified of him. After all, there's a guy loose in the complex who's a heavily augmented Super-Soldier and who managed to take out five heavily armed and well-trained soldiers in a greatly confined space, while disoriented and surrounded after being forcibly woken from stasis, before finally going down — and it still took eight men to do it. And even though they can tell where's he's been, no one knows where he is. As one guy says, "Do not let the low casualty count fool you. It only means he is more resourceful and more dangerous."
  • Getting the Factory Zero achievement certainly qualifies. The soldiers have armor, guns, box guards, laser sights, alarm systems, vastly superior numbers, and locked doors. The only thing Adam really has going for him is his own resourcefulness and the ability to take someone down in one hit, the latter of which he can usually only do once every thirty to sixty seconds; not much help if he's against more than one person. It's more than enough. Scared of Jensen? Of course. Fear Is the Appropriate Response.
  • You can find a PDA with orders for spec-ops troops in which you are referred to as "Sarif Attack Dog".
• Doing a successful Pacifist Run, especially if you get the Foxiest of the Hounds achievement and manage to save Faridah while you're at it.
  • More so when playing on "Give me Deus Ex" as well.
• Gaining the support of a die-hard fanbase already disillusioned by Invisible War? Impressive. Gaining the approval of the infamously hard-to-please /v/ with a leaked demo? Astounding.
• "The Good, the Bad, and the Lemon-Lime; i.e. The Ectasy of Au(gmentation)"
  • "How pointlessly tragic."
• Getting through the first level by knocking out every single Purity First man without any of them ever suspecting a thing. Even the otherwise unpleasable SWAT are damn impressed and actually acknowledge that sending you in first was probably a good idea.
  • And then following it up by taking Zeke Sanders alive, because you need the information he has. Even if you picked a lethal weapon from Sarif's selection at the start of the mission, you can still fight him, take him alive (hit him with a non-lethal shot and then use a takedown), and keep Josie from getting killed.
• Using the Typhoon can be one. There's nothing quite like ending a boss battle in the first second or wiping out a giant robot the moment it deploys.
• During The Missing Link, poison gas is set to kill everyone in the facility and Adam is presented with a choice. Option A: redirect the gas to kill hundreds of innocent civilians who were abducted by Belltower for their experiments. Option B: redirect the gas to kill a whistleblower who will get everyone at Belltower arrested. What to do? Option C: discover the hidden gas valve and shut it off, saving everyone. Everyone proceeds to congratulate and praise you for this, even Burke.
  Game: Achievement Unlocked: All Of The Above
  ???: Obaldet! The toxicity level is dropping! You found a way to save everyone, bratan!
  Burke: You're clever, I'll give you that. Most men aren't capable of seeing beyond the choice in front of them.
  Quinn: ...that trick you pulled with the gas—fucking brilliant work, that was.
• David Sarif standing up to the Illuminati, being the only wealthy figure of corporate power to do so, including telling Lucius DeBeers to go to hell, having his secretary block his calls, not caring how much money and influence he has to offer, when Lucius attempted to recruit him into the Illuminati, and working to usher mankind into an era of freedom, prosperity and advanced technology, as well as to make it so the augmented no longer have to depend on Versalife's Neuropozyne drug.