Jonric: What role will missions or quests play in the game, especially those that take the player character off the critical path? Will there be very many of them, and how will you keep them from becoming mundane or repetitive?

Ricardo Bare: Deus Ex is not a mission-based game, per se. It's more akin to RPGs that follow a narrative arc with 'goals' along the way. Occasionally, the player will have goals that are very much like a mission-based game ("Get inside the facility and steal the plans for the secret weapon"), but most of the goals fall out of the developing story.

As for side quests, there are plenty of them. In fact the first location of the game, Seattle is replete with interesting jobs you can do for different characters. I think none of our quests are mundane in the sense of traditional FedEx type quests. After all, you're a Biomodified special agent - people don't hire you deliver their groceries! Instead you'll get offers to do things like assassinate a meddlesome lawyer, break into the basement of a night club and see what the owner is hiding in there, or hack into the city's computers to alter information. These are just some of the side quests in the first city.