When I re-evaluated Invisible War for the first time about a year ago, I became infuriated by the hatred people had for it. While it may not have had exactly the same impact as its predecessor, IW moved to franchise forward in ways that were necessary. It may not have been entirely successful with every alteration or new mechanic, but it remained, unquestionably, a Deus Ex game.
 
Here's my initial thoughts after playing it again last year (from another IW related thread):  
 
"Deus Ex 2 streamlined the original games mechanics (much like mass Effect 2 to ME1. In this respect was well ahead of its time - you don't hear many people complaining about the unweildy elements of the game being removed), had an arguably better story, a more involving world and a better art style. I hate the stigma surrounding Invisible War. Though I prefer the overall experience to the first game, I suppose the furious anger it encourages from PC gamers encapsulates the problem with that medium as a whole: it's partially elitist while being stuck in the past and totally disregards console gaming. I love PC gaming, but when people started spewing vitriol about Deus Ex 2, the death knell was sounded.  " 
  
So I re-installed it earlier this afternoon, played a few hours and... lo and behold, I feel exactly the same. The introduction is messy, granted;  ultimately, however, the game retains a typically DX conspiracy-laden story, some great action and, most importantly, a vibrant universe. 

So I put it to you: what is it, exactly, about Deus Ex: Invisible War that many of you hate so passionately. 
 
For your consideration, here's an article on the subject from RockPaperShotgun. 

It's been a long while since I've played it but from I can remember the game was really short. I finished it in about a day on normal difficulty. I don't know whether that was just me or the game's fault but considering the length of the original I felt disappointed. All the better though because the game dealt with ammo in a stupid way. Universal ammo that can be used with all weapons. Sounds alright on paper until you realise that you very quickly run out of ammo during fights not to mention that I really enjoyed using different types of ammo in the orignial. Also the the augmentations felt dumbed down, not as cool nor useful. Don't remember anything regarding skills.
 
As I said before, it's been a while since I've played it so I could be wrong on a few spots. I don't hate the game per se but more like disappointed.

Controls where real real real real loose..never really liked the second one. 

I enjoyed DE:IW and I've never understood why it received so much hate. I'll agree 100% that it was nit as good the original but it still had a lot of good things going for it.

The characters are totally forgettable. The story isn't great. The ideas presented are kind of interesting, but it's impossible to care about. The levels are chopped up and tiny as hell and not fun to negotiate. The combat is boring. Early on you can unload multiple shotgun blasts into a dude's face with no discernable effect.
 
It's just not really a good game.

Deus Ex is a great FPS/RPG that caters to each's play style Be stealthy. Be combative. Be persuasive. Hack terminals. You don't have to kill anybody throughout the whole damn game. The art style and universe was very unique and bleak, and demonstrated possibility that this may happen to our world if it gets out of hand with political greed and corporate dominance.
 
Deus Ex IW is a shooter with useless stealth mechanics, an unoriginal sci-fi setting (too much high-tech, less urban grittiness), and overly-simplified hilariousness. People must understand that when a game has multiple dynamics between play-styles (ala System Shock 2, Planescape Torment,  Fallout1/2, and many older games in the past) that if there's one playstyle that is superior compared to the rest (Bioshock, and many modern RPG/FPS hybrids) then the player will always, and I mean ALWAYS, will use that playstyle on his first experience unless for experimentation. Deus Ex, on the other hand, was balanced enough to where you can play the way you want. While System Shock2 did this better, Deus Ex sure as hell did it near its level. It's sad that games are no longer RPGs to where you can get through a level without killing a single thing; they are now about killing shit, gaining experience, and continuing on a linear path.  

Mass Effect2, despite how great of a cover-based story driven shooter it was, wasn't a good RPG and shows how much gamers are dwindling in their intellectual thought processing on what they must do, and how they can achieve it. With linear corridors and mission points doing all the handy work, the true definition of "RPG" is now customization, black and white morals, weapon modding, damage rates, experience, and simplified character development. It's sad, really.

They streamlined the soul right out of it.  It was bad by Deus Ex standards and mediocre by any other standard (actually it's probably brilliant by today's standards).  The shitty box art represents everything that was wrong with it.

It was one of my favorite games, played through it so many times just like the first. I had fun with character interaction and exploring the game world, though admittedly a lot of it is terribly small/lesser in comparison. I guess that's what bothers people, still Deus Ex at heart but heavily scaled back. 
 
What do I hate? That Microsoft never bothered to make it compatible with the 360, so my Xbox copy will never be played again.

I actually tried to play it recently (I had played through a bit of it before) and I am willing to bash it on technical issues alone. The xbox version has a god-awful framerate and the PC version didn't run on my first computer, ran dreadfully on my second computer (which ran XP and had hardware released long after the game), and won't run at all on my modern Windows 7 machine. What I have played was ok (not amazing), but it didn't make up for the technical problems that I was having. It didn't even look all that great.
 
Deus Ex on the other hand runs just fine and had pretty much everything that I had liked about the sequel, so I'm going to say that people should stick with that if they want the definitive DE experience.

"if there's one playstyle that is superior compared to the rest (Bioshock, and many modern RPG/FPS hybrids) then the player will always, and I mean ALWAYS, will use that playstyle on his first experience unless for experimentation."

It felt tiny, claustrophobic in a way that had nothing to do with the setting, and everything to do with the level size limitations. This made a huge difference to the feel of the game.

Combine that with an incredibly generic setting that tossed out all the near future government/corporate conspiracy theories and replaced them with generic, Dune-lite sci-fi, and you've got a game with a vastly inferior feel.

Add in overly-simplified gameplay compared to the original (I hate the phrase 'dumbed down for consoles', but in this case it is exactly what Ion Storm did, even though console gamers would have handled the more complex stuff just fine), and you have a game that is pretty good on it's own merits, but inferior to it's progenitor in every single way.

I loved the game with a passion. And to me it looks like Deus Ex 3 will be a natural evolution of the 2nd game and that's why I'm excited for it.

I might give it a try. I played a tiny bit of the demo a few years ago, but was too put off by the negative stories about it that I never considered purchasing it.

I liked it, I loved Deus Ex and I am pissing myself with excitement over the next one.

" I might give it a try. I played a tiny bit of the demo a few years ago, but was too put off by the negative stories about it that I never considered purchasing it. "

Actually Tru3_Blu3 just reminded me of something. I managed to play through the first one without killing anybody at all through means of  tranquilzer darts, tear gas, batons and sneaking. It was a challenge but very satisfying by the fact it was actually possible. A concept that you don't get very often in many games. You just couldn't do that in IW because it was so damn linear.

Despite how much I enjoyed the first one, I never played IW. Or maybe it's because I know I'm going to be dissapointed.
 
But I'll probably give it a shot before Human Revolution comes out.

Quick question:
 
The screenshots on the game's page here are super-ugly, I don't remember it looking that bad when I played the demo - I remember it barely running on my computer then, but not for looking like an N64 game.
 
How does it look and run on modern hardware?
 
Seeing the director's cut of the CG trailer for Human Revolution made me wonder if I should have bought this game during the last steam sale...  I was completely turned off by experience with the demo, but I love FPS/RPG combos....

" I enjoyed DE:IW and I've never understood why it received so much hate. I'll agree 100% that it was nit as good the original but it still had a lot of good things going for it. "

Deus Ex : Invisible War is Deus Ex hijacked into a dumbed down Unreal 2 tech demo for a console audience.  It has one ending (with 3 extremely slight variations), one gameplay style (shoot all the time, hack a spare few things for loot, answer some questions for very marginally different dialogue responses and occasionally make black/white moral choices).  It's shit.

Mass Effect2, despite how great of a cover-based story driven shooter it was, wasn't a good RPG and shows how much gamers are dwindling in their intellectual thought processing on what they must do, and how they can achieve it. With linear corridors and mission points doing all the handy work, the true definition of "RPG" is now customization, black and white morals, weapon modding, damage rates, experience, and simplified character development. It's sad, really. "