Where to start. I didn't play this in its era. This was my first time ever playing the game.

First, it barely works on a Windows 10 PC. I had to install a few mods just to get the graphics to render at a reasonable resolution and also scale the UI a bit. Plus there's a massive issue with the default renderer making the game unbearably dark and hard to see.

The game freezes constantly when I enter menus, and there's zero checkpointing, so make sure you remember your quicksave and quickload keys.

The games systems are woefully underexplained and hard to manage. I didn't realize I'd been upgrading myself incorrectly with augmentations until well over halfway through, and you can't change your mind later.

Skill points are too hard to come by, and rewards feel very small, especially early on. Eventually I accidentally found an infinite skill points glitch, which I abused to max out every stat. Amazing how much better the pistol feels especially at level 4 vs level 1. It's like aiming drunk vs being Revolver Ocelot lol.

Much of this game is just wandering around hoping you don't suck with a gun, or trying to slap enemies on the ass with a baton because for some weird reason that's their crit spot.

The game is not very large, and is mostly linear, yet I found myself constantly lost. This map design is not it. And the maps are all static, relying on you to use a compass to get anywhere, if you even have one. I get that this is a "simulation" type game so maybe that's just not for me.

Managing your inventory was not super fun, and I found myself doing it a lot. Manually arranging items in a grid is just tedious lol, and the game really hurts if you have "I might need this later" syndrome.

Strangely enough, Deus Ex: Invisible War was my first DX game. I then played Human Revolution and eventually Mankind Divided (plus that phone game Deus Ex GO; surprisingly good). I eventually tried this based on the recommendation from a friend, but honestly I'm not really sure that PC games from 2000 hold up so well, in my opinion.

It's really not the graphics, those are actually kinda fun once you get it rendering correctly. The game design is dated, the controls are monstrous, and the whole game just feels like you're an awkward failson rather than the most elite genetically engineered agent ever lol.

I could maybe see this game being fun the second time around, once you know where everything is and what to do, but I had an awful time fumbling my way thru it.

I can see why by the standards of 2000 this was cool, but I think anyone still playing and enjoying it probably has some nostalgia fueling their run.