Set 20 years after Deus Ex, you play as Alex D. (who can be a man or a woman), an augmented agent who escapes his/her training facility to investigate a terrorist attack that destroyed Chicago.

Creating a sequel to one of the best games of all time would be difficult in any scenario, but Ion Storm began on the wrong foot – a multi-platform release. Simply put, the Xbox couldn't handle the large areas of the original game, so they had to scale things down.

Replacing the large, open locations with small areas interrupted by constant loading screens wasn't just disappointing – it killed exploration and made the multiple routes feel like pointless cosmetic choices. With no room for elaborate alternative paths, it boils down to “pick locked door” or “go into air vent nearby”.

A lot of streamlining was done as well – items, inventory and bio-mods were drastically reduced, while the RPG-like skills were removed altogether.

Game director Harvey Smith later summed it up best by saying they tried to fix what people didn't like in Deus Ex and forgot to focus on what they did like. A good example is the plot. The original game was elaborate and full of twists, although very linear. Invisible War offers two competing factions and you can pick sides, but the plot is an uninspired mess.

Moreover, any choice the player makes is quickly forgotten in favour of “player freedom”, e.g. if you betray a faction, it will send men after you. Once you dispatch them, the faction goes, “hope you learned your lesson, don't betray us anymore, please do this new quest”.

Deus Ex: Invisible War is not a horrible game. There are glimpses of creativity and the core gameplay can still be fun, even in such limited scale. But it's a horrible sequel to Deus Ex, and became a poster child for the compromises that PC games suffered when transitioning into multi-platform releases.