Deus Ex wouldn’t exist if Romero hadn’t created Ion Storm and given creative freedom to Warren Spector to make his dream game
Daikatana had some interesting design ideas but had problems with technology, esp. with AI programming. It was too ambitious for a new team which lacked someone like Carmack to do the heavy technical lifting
Quake 2 and 3 were reviewed less favourably than earlier titles, and they also sold less copies. They were good but not great - basically boring but very pretty to look at.
