Don't judge a book by it's first ten chapters

[Flying Arrow]

Deus Ex is genius until it turns into a dungeon crawler 2/3rds of the way through.

Where in the game exactly did you find that this happened? I assume sometime after Paris when there are no more town-type locations? I actually really like the final levels of this game, but I see how one can find it exhausting running through the air force base, ocean lab, and Area 51 in succession.

My two cents:

FFXII I felt started a bit slow. Most of the FFs have never really had problems with intros, but XII's was just slow. I don't think the game really picks up at all until the entire party gets together and leaves on the big quest.

A game that starts great and finishes badly: Bioshock. I love the first level, but everything after it slowly becomes more and more monotonous. I gave it a spin a month or so ago to give it another chance. I loved the beginning, but, again, started losing interest halfway into the second major area. I haven't touched it since and instead played through System Shock 2 - which is coincidentally another game that loses steam part way through. Everything on the Van Braun is solid and exciting an all, but once you board the second ship it goes downhill fast with a stupid find-15-macguffins quest, an irritating final set of stages and an offensively stupid final boss fight and ending sequence. Good god.