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.
