remember when deus ex started with a billionaire ordering a politician to ignore his concerns about containing a plague because he doesn't care about anyone and the death and civil unrest gives them an excuse to ramp up their militarism

It was a cartoonishly over the top game with a ludicrous plot but the reason it worked was because it had a basic political point

"This plague... the rioting is intensifying to the point where we may not be able to contain it."
"Why contain it? Let it spill over into the schools and churches. Let the bodies pile up in the streets. In the end, they'll beg us to save them."

"There's not enough vaccine to go around, and the underclasses are starting to get desperate."
"Of course they're desperate. They can smell their deaths, and the sound they'll make rattling their cages will serve as a warning to the rest."

Capitalism was a trick to concentrate wealth and power into the hands of the most cruel and ruthless. The concept of America was a propaganda tool designed to subdue the people. The billionaire was the villain and the 'terrorists' were the heroes. It was a silly, clever game.

One of Paul's first lines is in response to the player character boasting about how he can handle things solo: "One can be too self-sufficient, I'm coming to believe."

I've only just realised how well that was foreshadowing a point of the game: resistance needs a community.

Deus Ex had some gems in amongst its cheesiness. "Being a soldier isn't just following orders, it's following those orders in the service of a higher cause. When that cause is betrayed, we're not soldiers anymore, just pieces on a chess board dying for the wrong reason."

"There's a time and a place for security, but the legislature has to stay vigilant, or there will be abuses."

This was from a grizzled veteran character, in the year 2000. Can you even name another game that has the word "legislature" in its script?

One of the villains, talking about an agent who's developed a conscience: "Once the bug bites, you've already lost the patient."