This game is terrible. The game is designed poorly, it plays terribly, the story is garbage, the characters are bad, the weapons are just lame, the game is terribly balanced, and it's a poorly optimized console port from the original Xbox. The performance is of particular note. You will randomly get MASSIVE drops in frame rate for NO reason. Many entirely random spots have tanked the frame rate below 20, even on minimum settings. This game does look alright for its age (except for animations - they're all terrible), but the maps are TINY. Unreal Engine 2 is better than this, so I can't tell you why it's so bad, but it is. As for the story, any illusions of depth are entirely superficial. There is no real "mystery" here. Which DX ending did IW follow? All of them. How? Because reasons, basically. The plot twists are best summed up as "Oh, yeah, I lied, and now I have a mission for you." The characters are shallow caricatures with no depth or anything. The factions are all terribly bland and really transparent. The villains of the story are probably the best-written, and they just randomly offer to let you join them despite them hating you and trying to kill you the entire game. This game is stupid. As for gameplay, all weapons share the same ammo pool, with some using more and others using less. Not that it matters, since ammo is EVERYWHERE. Enemies have terrible AI, can't shoot worth a damn, and it's ridiculously easy to just kill them outright. Sneaking is clunky and restrictive, but enemies are dumb enough that it's super easy to sneak past anyone and everyone. Movement and physics are clunky and just not fun. The biomods are the only highlight of the game, and even then you have all the ones you'll need by halfway through the game. This game is not worth $2.50, and that's saying something. This game will make you hate games. I slogged through it and I would have been happier if I never did. Avoid like the plague.
