Combat is at the same time better and worse than the first game. The astonishing array of toys you have at your disposal that you can use to take out your enemy makes encounters interesting. However, Ion Storm has decided to severely hamstring damage values in the game, making combat a more drawn-out affair. Having fairly easily (well, barring a few unexpected rockets in the face) completed the game on "Realistic" mode (which isn't, by the way), I fail to understand the reason for this. Deus Ex was always about efficiently defeating your opposition; whether by stealth or brawn. I would expect the two aspects to be balanced - they are not. Four venom darts to the head is entirely too many to take someone down, and "a headshot is NO LONGER a lethal takedown" - to bastardize the words of a character in Deus Ex 1. Despite all of these shortcomings the latter levels are still challenging, if not quite as fraught with panic as, say, the MJ-12 base of Deus Ex 1. The lack of recoil, lack of a blooming reticle (easier to aim when standing still), loss of skills to improve your preferred playing style and a simplified selection of weapon mods all make the combat a little more action-focused. Whether this is a bad or a good thing is up to the player - this reviewer found it lacking - I prefer my combat a little more realistic. In the end however, you can still be a stealth ninja, a stalker/sniper, an assault tank - whatever you wish.