I own this game on Steam (works flawlessly with SteamPlay, should work with Wine as well), and I've enjoyed playing it. It's a narrative driven game involving going through someone's communications (think of something like Orwell, but with direct interaction with other characters, and much better executed), and it takes around 4-5 hours to play through the first time. The game tries to capture contemporary social media driven world, and it seems to do it well enough, at least from the point of view of someone who doesn't use it. Puzzles don't get in the way, there are 3 endings, and the final conversation is pretty enjoyable. The replay value is there, especially with the new game+ mode that speeds up in-game text to avoid waiting through the same conversations. The game keeps track of choices you make and keeps statistics of how people play through the game, which makes for a pretty interesting summary.
I remember playing through this game a couple of years ago, and back then I found it frustrating at times. Now I was able to blast through it in one sitting. The length of the game depends on one's skill. The soundtrack is pretty much perfect. It seems that my biggest problems with this game weren't as severe as I remember them being back in the day, and I'm going to list them here: - RNG (biggest problem of this game, even speedrunners need luck at certain points in the game, as certain starting configurations are near impossible, and it's impossible to pull off certain stats consistently) - inconsistent behavior of enemies (at times it's possible to shoot weapons next to them and have them not notice it) - cutscenes that can't be skipped (especially ones before boss fights) - no way to restart the current floor without dying - stealth level (a really big mistake that's not fun at all, just like hotline miami 2) - certain levels are so big they require guessing what's happening on the opposite site of the map - masks aren't unlocked by default (I didn't like having to unlock Tony again) Inconsistency and RNG are possibly the most frustrating aspect of this game, as they shift difficulty of the game towards luck, which should not be involved here at all. The GNU/Linux port seems to work well, although only a 32-bit binary is available, so mutilib is required, and it depends on obscure libraries such as nvidia-cg-toolkit, which required searching for by names, as it's not possible to simply guess their package names.
This game belongs to one of few that are so timeless and good that they manage to have a cult following and not be overrated. Too bad a game like this is not likely to ever come out again. The plot in this game is possibly the best aspect of it, (which doesn't mean that the game is bad without it) and is the reason why this game would have no chance of being released today. The intro of the game is enough to get you hooked and keep playing to progress the story. It's reliance on “conspiracy theories,” (too many of which ended up being true) the critique of globalism and endings which ruin any possibility of a sequel (which was still made for some reason) are the reason why it would have no chance of coming out today. The gameplay feels great, systems feel sophisticated but not overwhelming, and character progression still leaves room for relying on player's skill, and is kept at a proper pace to make the player more and more powerful through pretty much the entire (quite long) game. Multiple health bars make combat unique (there aren't many FPS games where your legs can be rendered useless mid-combat). Dialog system is great, as options shown match exactly what JC says (which is an area where modern games have made a huge regression). His one-liners are possibly the best ones out there, but because of their context sensitivity fans aren't quoting them too often. Level design is great, as multiple ways of completing objectives add a lot to replay ability and make the game stand out to this day, although some areas were better after a redesign for the PS2 port (especially hubs in Hong Kong). The differences between the PC and the PS2 versions make both of them worth playing out, and they show how much work was needed to make games work on consoles. My biggest problem with this game is the lack of peaceful hub areas full of atmosphere in late game, which make the game a bit tiring after X51. The GOG release is really nice, as it tries to make Unreal Engine work with little problems on modern hardware. My only nitpick is the broken OpenGL renderer, which doesn't have detail textures, but that's a single DLL swap. I'd definitely put this game on a “must play” list.
This is possibly the worst game of all time, especially considering which game this was a sequel to. Considering the plot of the prequel, carrying on with the timeline made no sense, so a merge of all substantially different endings was needed. It turned the plot into a mess, which either isn't explained well enough (there's pretty much no explanation what MJ-12 is) if the player isn't familiar with Deus Ex, or all plot twists come from a mile away. The intro doesn't intrigue at all, unlike the prequel, and the game ends up being boring through its entirety. There are plenty of plot holes as well — Alex Denton not knowing their last name makes absolutely no sense, as well as the Aquinas hub magically teleporting to Alex Jacobson's desk. I'm quite disappointed that Omar didn't play a bigger role in the plot as well, as they were possibly the most interesting faction in the game, and their ending feels tacked on as an afterthought. Graphics somehow manage to look worse than the prequel as well. Clunky character models and animations ruin how the game looks, and real time shadows don't look or work too well. Performance was horrible as well, at least under wine-staging. The game was so rushed that the engine restarts every time the game loads (which happens way too often) to deal with supposed memory leaks, and causes ridiculously long load times. Combat is unbearable. It feels like it depends pretty much entirely on luck, as even abusing the regeneration aug isn't enough to stay alive at times. Universal ammo depletes so quickly that I used it as a last resort, especially because of how weak firearms are compared to melee attacks with augs. Mouse look on PC sets a new low, as it seems to get stuck at times and forces to look in the opposite direction at some times, which makes combat even harder than it should be. Pretty much every other resource than ammo is plentiful to the point where collecting it becomes boring. I ended up with maxed out augs before I was half way through the game. Also, for some reason certain multitools (which function as lock picks in this game because it had to be dumbed down this much). Somehow the decision to design this game for both the Xbox and PC (and by that I mean forcing it into constraints of Xbox) caused it to be dumbed down even more than the PS2 port (which had half amount of RAM Xbox had) and completely ruined the interface (which was better in the console port of the prequel). Levels feel even smaller than they were in the PS2 port of Deus Ex. The way aug canisters work completely broke character progression (where the prequel held the player back by not handing canisters for all slots to make sure the player won't end up maxing out before the game even takes off). This game should've been buried underground rather than E.T. Developers would've been better off releasing a DVD with all endings, as this would work under even more platforms without the need to dumb the product down, and video compression would've been better. I had to force myself through the game, even though I wanted to experience how bad it is.
I own this game on Steam and I think it's one of the best games of all time. I love it's minimalistic approach to mechanics which manages to feel complete even with a single dual-mode weapon. It's a skill-based game for high score junkies, so some people might find it repetitive and difficult. Graphics are superb and emulate Quake's software renderer style nicely, although I wish there was a way to change resolution, especially to change pixel aspect ratio and possibly run it at era-accurate resolutions like 320x200. The developer is supposedly trying to add in ability to play offline, so GOG release should be functional without having to log in anywhere soon, and I'm preemptively giving a positive review because of that. I hope this game shows up on GOG connect.
