I have recently finished
Invisible War, the red-headed stepchild of the venerable
Deus Ex family -- and a direct sequel to my favorite game of all time. I actually completed it for the first time ever, exactly 20 years after it was released! I still own a physical copy of the game, but in all these years I had only done the tutorial mission. Now, kudos to a community patch, I could experience Invisible War in glorious 4K with numerous technical improvements and more detailed graphics. With two mutually exclusive texture packs, I took it upon myself to manually review about 5,000 textures to get the best of both. The results can be seen below. The left screen shows the original release in maximum detail (1200p + MSAA 8x), and the right one is 4K + MSAA 8x with increased FOV and higher res textures:
From a technological perspective, the game fares rather poorly today. It was developed for the original Xbox, and the console's hardware limitations are evident in the overall design, graphics and simplistic mechanics -- a far cry from the technical marvel that was the first Deus Ex.
The environments are mostly small and cramped, and the feeling of claustrophobia isn't helped by the narrow FOV. The levels are interspersed with loading screens. As every mission is hub based and involves plenty of travelling, you'll be seeing these a lot. Graphically, many areas look barren, and the textures are of low quality for the most part. To make matters worse, the interface and controls were created with the console in mind, and the game is a chore to play with a K+M.
Upon release Invisible War boasted advanced physics and AI, but both are poorly implemented. Every movable object has physical attributes, such as mass and maximum velocity, but you'll be sending heavy metal crates flying across the room just by bumping into them. The NPCs will often act in illogical and unpredictable ways, like turning on you for no apparent reason, or detecting your presence without a line of sight. As a result, they will regularly screw up a pacifist run, your allegiance, or even the whole mission, affecting the game's ending.
It was actually the main reason why it took me a long while to get into this game. I just couldn't figure out the enemy AI. And playing it on the highest difficulty level with a non-lethal/stealth approach didn't make it any easier, either. But eventually I did manage a completionist playthrough with a choice of four endings.
Speaking of, the writing isn't as good as in the the first installment, and the protagonist is somewhat bland. But the story, involving some key characters from the previous game, ties in very nicely in the final chapters.
Gameplay-wise, Invisible War still is an immersive sim that gives you a lot of freedom. The choices that you make are even more morally ambiguous, and the game doesn't try to guide you towards the "proper" ending. You can follow your own agenda throughout, and even switch allegiances multiple times. Overall, the game is good -- even very good at times -- and definitely worthy of its progenitor's name. It's just that it's a simplified, "consolized" experience that doesn't have the depth, complexity and intricate RPG mechanics of the masterpiece that is the original Deus Ex.
'Solo used to be better at some point in the very early days of D3 but they quickly turned that around' 
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