Deus Ex: Invisible War demo released

As you may have spotted thanks to your internet monitoring augmentations, an official demo of Deux Ex: Invisible War appeared over the weekend and you can now get hold of the 225MB package from all the usual suspects (including 3D Gamers who have a Torrent link). System specs are quite steep, and there are some graphics card issues to consider according to the readme file, but we're guessing that won't stop too many of you...

Having glanced around a few message boards it seems like some of Ion Storm's choices in the demo have met with a degree of frustration and antipathy. People are complaining that game appears "dumbed down" without being too specific, with interface issues, .ini files and other superficial stuff seemingly the main objections. Of course Ion Storm was always going to find it difficult to live up to Deus Ex, but given that the developer is famed for creating a game that gives the player choices and reacts to their decisions, it seems unlikely that widespread criticism of things like mouse sensitivity and the size of on-screen text will go unnoticed.

In other words, we'd recommend against blacklisting Invisible War for now - after all, demos can do more harm than good in this day and age, as anybody who played the Prince of Persia and Beyond Good & Evil demos and then bought the full games will tell you.

For more on Deus Ex: Invisible War, we'd encourage you to eavesdrop on Kieron Gillen's cozy chat with Warren Spector, where some of the elements under fire post-demo are called into question - including the single ammo reserve. If the demo failed to get you excited, Spector's enthusiasm and honesty might well persuade you to take another look...