Deus Ex: Invisible War

Judged next to the original Deus Ex, the sequel can be considered a disappointment. People loved the first game, and most of the similarities the games share are top-level concepts and not the execution of those concepts. If it was its own thing, I think it would have been better received, but as a sequel, it definitely feels simplified for a broader audience, alienating the fans the series already had. It's still about playing a person trained and cybernetically modified to be the perfect soldier, in a directed yet flexible storyline featuring corruption and conspiracy, with a level of freedom in how you go about your tasks. In some ways, you have even more freedom than the first game, with the (somewhat irrelevant) choice of gender and often multiple conflicting objectives to consider, rather that just the occasional side quest. As nice as that sounds though, the opposing forces don't actually offer that much potential for interesting ramifications. Leaders of a faction will warn you that you're angering them if you keep going against their wishes, but they never actually stop giving you the opportunity to help them. Near the end, enemies will or will not attack you based on what you've done recently, but like the first game, there are multiple endings and you can side with whoever you want regardless of what you actually did the rest of the time.

There are some game design choices I didn't much like either. The weapon system is dumbed down, with only two mods allowed per firearm and generic ammunition that takes some strategy out of resource management and screws you if you ever get too trigger happy. Biomod canisters are generic as well, and it's disappointing that you can only have access to five powers besides light at a time, especially when among these is the ability to hack computers, which you can always do in the first game and usually comes in quite handy. One thing the game unfortunately has in common with its predecessor is poor shooting gameplay, which is generally okay since it's more of an RPG most of the time but irritating when you do get in a big fracas. The story is pretty decent, although it seems to wish it was more interesting that it really is, and it seems a bit lazy when the same twist is used in both the main plot and a sidestory. They might have been trying to make a point with that, I just didn't like it. They did some nice things separating it from the first game while still tying them together in the end, though. While it did have some problems, I don't like it when people expect the sequel to march in lockstep with the original every time, and I found it to be a good experience most of the way through. I heard it was quite buggy when it launched, but now that it's on Steam a few years later that seems to be mostly ironed out. Usually you expect a video game sequel to be better, but just because it isn't doesn't mean it's bad.