My thoughts after a full series playthrough of Deus Ex, and how good I think the games are in relation to each other.
Deus Ex has been my favorite video game since playing it for the first time in 2004. Since then, it has aged remarkably well from a narrative standpoint. Few games tell such complex stories in such simple ways, and virtually no game from that era (or many years afterward) has such a high level of replayability. Even now, 15 years after my first playthrough, I still seemingly find something new every time I play the game.
New Vision, HDTP, and GMDX have helped to breathe new life into the game, but I still hold my long-standing opinion that the best Deus Ex experience is 100% vanilla. The first playthrough should always be on vanilla DX. Save the mods for subsequent runs of the game. I am very much awaiting the final release of New Vision 2.0, which fuilly restores the vanilla art style using AI-enhanced textures (which is a very Deus Ex-ey concept in itself).
The level design of the original Deus Ex is, from a gameplay standpoint, one of the strongest aspects of the game. While the art style and decoration certainly leave something to be desired, the levels are designed in a way that makes them logical and fun to play. This is where mods like Revision stray too far off course. While the endeavor to modernize Deus Ex's levels is ambitious and admirable, they didn't know how to strike a balance between eye candy and playability. Revision is very nice-looking, but the levels themselves feel clunky, and so much of it seems to be placed there for the sake of adding more things to the map. This is one of my favorite aspects of GMDX: the artistic direction of the maps is tightened up and improved, but the core levels don't change.
Deus Ex, nearly 20 years after its release, stands as one of the finest video games ever made. To me, it's essential for almost any gamer. There are a lot of people in this sub who say they can't get past the graphics or the more primitive gameplay. I implore you to really try and play this game. It's intensely rewarding and, easily, the best game in the series.
That's not to say the original game is without its flaws. The graphics are pretty ugly even for its time. The original scope of the game was originally going to be much more ambitious and had to be drastically scaled down. As the game progresses, it's evident that the focus of the game's development changed over time. Early levels present many interesting decisions that actually have some kind of consequence later in the game, as well as showing a real difference between lethal and nonlethal runs. The game's focus changes almost immediately as soon as you start in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is clearly a more detailed and fleshed-out level compared to the ones that precede it, and that also applies to the levels that follow. At this point, though, the decision-making aspect of the game is sharply curtailed. The terrible voice acting is well-documented (Meestah Jay-See Dentawn, in da fresh!). That the game carries the reputation of being one of the greatest ever in spite of its shortcomings is a testament to how good it really is.
On the other hand, Invisible War is tough to play through these days. It was tough to play through when I first played it in 2004. If you can get Windows 10 to play nice with it, then you have to contend with its god-awful HUD and lack of native high-res support. Once you finally get past those, then you might have to deal with the occasional sudden crash to desktop. On top of that, the levels are small and the loading screens are long, even from an SSD.
Warren Spector's lack of in-depth involvement in Invisible War is evident. From a gameplay standpoint, the game just doesn't stand up to the original. Stealth is decidedly more difficult if not impossible. The choices you make in the game have little consequence. There's virtually no difference between lethal vs non-lethal, which was a pretty major aspect of the first game. Facial expressions and dialogue are lifeless. The multiple endings from the first game are completely bungled - all three endings are mashed together.
It isn't all bad, though. From a narrative standpoint, it's an essential installment in the Deus Ex canon. Alex D is a pretty good protagonist, especially (in my opinion) when played as a woman. Tarsus as an institution is interesting, as is the Order Church and the WTO. The biomod system is partially an improvement since you're never locked into the biomods you install. You can always install a new biomod over an old one, unlike the original game's augmentation system. Cairo is the best environment in the game, with some great contrasts between the medina and the enclave. It's also, in my opinion, where the game feels least claustrophobic. The levels that precede and follow Cairo, especially lower Seattle and Trier, feel very closed-in.
That leads into probably the biggest criticism of the game: the levels are too small and the loading screens are too frequent. From the get-go in Seattle, some missions require you to pass through five or more loading screens. It's an unacceptable part of the design and makes Invisible War a test of patience. You'd think that with newer hardware and an SSD that the loading screens would become less of an issue, but even on modern systems, the loading screens take too long.
There are some other gameplay criticisms. The native FOV of the game feels too zoomed-in. Universal ammo is a real pain. Basically anything that isn't the pistol consumes ammo far too quickly to be practical. Stealth is much harder in this game since there are less spots to easily hide. Physics engines were still primitive at the time, but the physics in this game are genuinely hilariously bad. Bodies ragdoll and fly across the room like they're blow-up dolls. You can throw virtually any object, light or heavy, very far with considerable force. The combat AI feels very robotic, even compared to the original game.
Invisible War tried too hard to appeal to the tastes and aesthetics of console games and essentially ruined the series. Ion Storm shut down only a year after its release. Thief: Deadly Shadows used the same engine as Invisible War, and was a considerably better game, but it wasn't enough to save Ion Storm, the Thief series, or the Deus Ex series. It was understandable. Ion Storm's games didn't sell very well, and so many of them were legitimately terrible, especially the infamous Daikatana.
John Romero, who had made a name for himself with id Software by designing and programming classics like Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and so many others, effectively destroyed his reputation with Ion Storm's failure. Warren Spector's career also took a nosedive after the demise of Ion Storm, with only the two Epic Mickey games to his name since its closing. Deus Ex appeared to be hopelessly damaged goods until Eidos Montreal began work on Human Revolution in 2007.
Human Revolution, to me, is clearly the second best game in the series. Artistically and graphically it has aged well, the game is well-optimized and runs well on most systems, and it's not very hard to get into at all. Human Revolution was many people's introduction to the Deus Ex series, and I think that's a good thing. The gameplay jives well with the original Deus Ex with some modern improvements.
Stealth in Human Revolution is just as smooth as the original game, but with added cover and takedown mechanics to further streamline gameplay. Movement feels good and natural. Weapons feel strong and satisfying to use. The hacking mechanic is wonderful. There's plenty of room to explore. The levels are big and the few loading screens that are in the game don't take very long. Detroit and Hengsha are excellent settings. The decisions you make actually feel like they have consequences on the rest of the game. The characters feel fleshed-out, are naturally introduced, and are developed extremely well over the course of the game. The voice acting is excellent. Truthfully, from the standpoint of narrative and gameplay, Human Revolution is nearly perfect.
That's not to say there aren't any negative aspects of HR. Occasionally the game feels repetitive, especially when having to traverse the same stretch of map over and over for a particular mission (similar to Invisible War). Character animations while in conversation are awkward and repetitive - they're not as good as, say, Half-Life 2, and that game is a full seven years older. The game, overall, feels much more linear than it could've been. The worst part of HR, by far, is the presence of boss battles. Thankfully these boss battles are pretty quickly beaten using the Typhoon aug, but they completely disrupt the flow of the game. It's not surprising that they do, since boss battle development was outsourced to Grip Entertainment while the rest of the game was developed in-house by Eidos Montreal. A truly perplexing decision. Why not just remove boss battles altogether? On top of that, the only available version on Steam now is the Director's Cut, which uses outdated code and forces you to play through the Missing Link DLC as part of the game. The DLC takes too long, doesn't quite fit with the rest of the game, and completely disrupts the storyline at a critical juncture just as it seemed that things were really picking up.
Human Revolution was an excellent addition to the Deus Ex series and naturally had me excited for Mankind Divided. After a PC upgrade last year, I was finally able to play Mankind Divided, and to be honest, it's rather disappointing.
Mankind Divided immediately throws you into Jensen's life two years after the events of Human Revolution. Characters are inserted without being properly introduced, and then not really developed or fleshed out later on. Vaclav is a crazy nerd, Macready is a big meanie, etc. The control scheme is different enough from HR that it takes a little too long to fully get used to. Before you even know what's hit you, you're thrust into a chaotic combat scene in the middle of a dust storm. Hacking is also needlessly changed. The mouse feel is inexplicably terrible, even after tweaking and testing. Once you finally get your bearings, the game is enjoyable, but suffers from a lot of Invisible War-isms that weren't present in HR.
This goes without saying, but the graphics are downright excellent. However, the game is optimized terribly. Even today's high-end systems struggle running the game on full settings and there's just no reason for it. If you're not running the game on one of the preset Low/Medium/High/Ultra settings, you risk running into graphical glitches, notably flickering lights if using TXAA. MSAA fixes the flickering but deals a huge blow to performance. Prague is a nice environment, but it's not as varied as the multiple cities and places you see in HR. The levels aren't too small, but the loading screens are too frequent and take too long. Missions often require you to travel between different regions of Prague to complete them, so loading screens are nearly impossible to avoid unless you know exactly where each mission takes place.
The voice acting, just like HR, is very good. I was stunned on my first playthrough of MD to hear Bob Page's lines from the original voice actor. I only wish they could have done the same for Manderley and Everett. The story ends on a massive cliffhanger, especially with the post-credits scene, but given the quality of this game and its relatively low sales, I suspect we won't be seeing a continuation of the series for quite a while despite Square Enix's claim that the series is not cancelled or formally postponed. I just hope when the fifth DX game hits that they've learned their mistakes from MD and return to a more streamlined game like we had with HR. I know what some people will say, that MD has more going for it and more going on. Despite this, HR holds up far better. MD is, to me, clearly the third-best Deus Ex game, especially after a second playthrough six months later.
With all that said, my final ranking: