I posted this in the "games completed" thread, but figured I might as well post it in here, too, fwiw.

After staring at in in my backlog for more than twelve years, and finding various reasons to play lesser games before it year after year (for example, Daikatana, Messiah, Project IGI, Contract JACK) I finally played and finished the original Deus Ex. I modded it with high res textures and Enhanced/Shifter and beat it three times in succession, starting from the middle difficulty and finishing with the highest. As countless folks have (rightly) sung the game's praises, I don't really need to say that it's a great game, and obviously, since I beat it three times in a row, I enjoyed the heck out of it.

But, as good as it was, by the third playthrough I found myself lamenting the excessive easiness of the game even on Realistic. If I could afford not to return to my immense backlog, I might play it a fourth time forcing myself not to use health packs or take the regeneration perk, just to see if that injects some risk/suspense back into the game. Also, the AI is really shitty, although in fairness AI programming in FPS games is apparently not much better today than it was when Deus Ex was first released, as evidenced by the fact that (with rare exceptions) reviewers frequently beat up on even modern triple-A releases for terribad AI in the FPS genre.

I loved the fact that there were no phony-hard "bosses" shoehorned into the game. Also whoever did the high-rez textures for the game did awesome work.

Anyway, great game, not sure if it's really the Greatest of All Time (tm) as some have argued but it's certainly in my top fifteen on PC.

Well, congratulations!

Difficulty wise, I think only the damage dealt by enemies changed, and once you have played through it a couple times it's easy to bypass/stealth kill them which nullifies the difficulty level. That was certainly dissapointing, however it's also true that NSF troopers from the early game would sometimes kill me with 1 headshot on realistic. That's fair, at least.

Yeah, games that attempt to increase difficulty by merely upping damage or enemy HP really shortchange the experience IMO. In the case of Deus Ex, "Realistic" should have entailed things like limited saves, no medkits, longer alert status for enemies, perhaps less ammo. I'd have even been OK with the game spawning in a few extra enemies here and there as a penalty for setting off an alarm. Frankly, after playing the game on three different difficulties, I could barely tell any difference at all between them, and that's a real shame. Still, it's a testament to how much the game does right that the AI and overpowered-player issues are mere annoyances.

But how would enemies damage/kill you if you stealth kill them anyway ? Even in realistic i can kill any opponent with the stealth pistol (2 shots) from a distance while being safe on a roof. It doesn't mean the game isn't difficult because if i miss or if i forget one opponent i'll prolly be killed easily.
I think because you did it 3 times in a row you remembered too well everything in the game ;)