Deus Ex 2: Invisible War

First of all: If you get a black screen by starting a new game try this: Deactivate every overlay application (nividia, steam, etc) start it as a administrator. The gameplay is good. It has a few questionable design choices like universal ammo and dumped down roleplaying. However It feels like deus ex. It has the hacking like the original deus ex. The main character talks like JC Denton. It let me solve problems the way I want. I realy want to like it... But: Loading screens completely ruin this game. It takes forever to load a new area. that may not sound too bad until you realize how small the areas are and how often you have to load a new map. It's a real shame, a good game is here but buried under horrible optimisation.

For context: I played DX and DX2 for the first time in 2024, so nostalgia wasn't a factor for me. Coming from the original game which was far from perfect but still supremely playable even today, DX2 felt unpolished, heavily compromised, buggy and oh-so janky by comparison to the point of being unable to take is seriously. Of all the games in the franchise, I had the hardest time immersing myself here. I was left wondering where it went wrong during development since they obviously had all the ingredients for a great sequel: rich lore, memorable characters, a great sequel hook and the Unreal 2 engine. But I just didn't see those puzzle pieces coming together. On a technical level, DX2 felt extremely small and constrained compared to the open levels of DX, leaving little opportunity to sneak around because all environments were so tiny and despite that, there's multiple loading screens for pretty much everything. Hub areas were the worst offender: exit a building (LS), walk across the street into another building: LS. And these were far from instantaneous even on a modern PC which was terrible for my immersion. This isn't a fault of the Unreal 2 engine or the original Xbox since both are more than capable of rendering large open areas. DX2 did bring some noticeable improvements (dynamic lighting, gunplay, alt-fire for guns, futuristic items, augmentation wheel) which I did appreciate, but the environments and story honestly just left me as flat and emotionally detached as Alex Denton’s voice lines. Even life-changing revelations didn’t faze him. Despite a more talented cast, the delivery of most dialogue somehow ended up worst than DX to the point of being utterly distracting. The story also felt convoluted and incoherent. Disappointing conclusion of my DX journey starting with The Fall. If you’re looking for a futuristic DX, I’d wholeheartedly recommend Project Snowblind instead. A much better and refined game.

I played this on the XBox for an entire year when it came out. I have played other games and they do not compare to the memories of fun from this title. Plus it is better on pc. MUST PLAY.

This game is awesome has a good story and is just super fun in general

Cannot figure out how to make this work. Unplayable as-is. You would think there would be at least the bare minimum of making the game compatible with modern computers. I guess not.