I’ll start with committing sacrilege: Even tough Deus Ex has remarkably few flaws for a game of its complexity, some slight ones do exist. The environments look a bit sparse; the weapons feel like toys; the limited AI can be easily exploited; and some skills, augs and weapons are clearly more useful than others. When you’ve played through the game countless times like I have, you get curious about whether there’s, you know, a mod for that.

Whereas the wider-known Deus Ex overhaul, Revision, saw the need to fix things that really don’t need fixing, like the level design (and went about it with all the subtlety and grace of a Trump family member), the developer of the more conservative GMDX (Give Me Deus Ex) tried to imagine what the game would be like if it had received an additional layer of polish before release.

Practically every aspect of the game was tweaked, but in smart and thoughtful ways, respecting the vision of the original designers. Combat especially feels much more like a viable way to play now thanks to dramatically improved AI and gunplay; skills and augmentations have been carefully rebalanced; bugs and engine quirks have been fixed; there are new ways to interact with the world, as well as various quality-of-life improvements to the interface; even the visuals and level design have been refined in ways that you probably won’t even notice if you haven’t played the game in a few years.

There are a few edge cases that may take things to far for certain people, like giving the player the ability to mantle onto ledges, adding a stamina bar, or the introduction of a whole new perk system. Personally speaking, I've been playing through the game with GMDX twice by now, and even though I may not agree with every little change, the experience of playing a deeper, more refined, more immersive version of Deus Ex has been amazing, making me engage even more with all of the game’s different systems.

The combination of improved movement, physics, combat and gunplay really is a game changer, because it just makes the act of playing the game feel so much better. Other things I love are, for example, how the weapon upgrade system has been turned from an afterthought into a fully fleshed-out mechanic, and how the addition of a power throw not only opens up new ways of playing, but even makes the often repeated act of breaking open supply crates into something that’s fun.

I have to admit that compared to Deus Ex, I actually prefer the earlier Looking Glass games like Thief and the original System Shock. There are a few reasons for this, but only one of them is relevant to this review. Basically, while I do abstractly admire action RPGs that accommodate a variety of different builds and playstyles, in practice this often results in a compromise where the individual components are less robust than they could be if the development honed in on just one of them, or a few closely related ones. Balance issues are a side effect of this. Of course, the response is that I'm just nitpicker who misses the forest for the trees, and sure, I'm willing to concede that perspective to an extent. I suppose it's just a philosophical difference I have with hardcore fans of RPGs. (And don't get me wrong, Deus Ex is a really cool game, it's just not near the top of my favorites list.)

Then again there's GMDX, a mod that purports to fix a lot of Deus Ex's balance issues and generally add a layer of polish. Turns out this is the last thing the game needed to retain any kind of personality. I got to Paris by the time I gave up, but I realized the problem early on: if the sniper rifle isn't a better weapon at close range than an un-upgraded shotgun, what is even the point of Deus Ex?