So... why change the recipe? None of you quite get the scope of the original plot or the jarring disparity with the sequel.
First off: Tech report. Some sci-fi fluff, theoretical tangents. Need this to set the scene for my argument.
Crysis 1 aliens:
Freeze ray? No. Nothing as brash as that. The intent is not to freeze (kill with cold), it's to harvest energy. That was the defining trait of Crysis 1's aliens. A near perfect ability to harness and harvest energy. Nuke them and they get bigger. Everything was tied into this.
They fired icicles at you because condensing atmospheric water and harvesting heat from it is the most efficient ammunition re-stocking method imaginable.
Their shields could be thought of as artificial null fields, harvesting even the kinetic energy of impacts. How do you think anything could take that many hits without it's shield dropping? An ability like that would mean it charges itself when being hit by physical objects. Heat of explosions would be harvested normally.
The freeze sphere wasn't an area denial weapon, it was the alien equivalent of a solar panel. Not offensive or defensive, just... part of what they use.
This is why Nomad's signal was so devestatingly effective. It knocked out their ability to harvest energy.
Crysis 2 aliens:
Biological warfare. After complete energy control, this becomes the most effective form of warfare. The combat forms aren't the aliens. At all. They contain some alien genetic code in the mix, but from what I gather from the story, these guys play biowar like the Flood, Zerg, Combine, etc. Their combat forms, dropships, pingers are all built from human tissue, reprocessed by the spore. Yet again a strikingly efficient way to go about things, allowing them to pull their own warriors off the front line.
This should have been the cornerstone of the games, but it was ruined by a completely hobbled together excuse for a story, only slightly spit shined by Morgan almost as an afterthought.
I can see a number of 'Morgan-style' characters in this, Hargreave in particular seems almost a copy/paste of Laurens Bancroft from Altered Carbon, a man who has lived many lifetimes, and has directed things from behind the scenes, eventually disconnecting from humanity, thinking them beneath him. Hargreave is the same, less concerned with the outcome than the beauty of the journey, of one man facing impossible odds. He can no longer see anyone but himself as a protagonist.
Hargreave alone should have been enough to make this great, but it was ruined utterly by the way things were done. All the other nanosuits - gone. No explanation. The sole weapon capable of defeating the aliens using Crysis 1 tactics - Nomad's suit signal, Psycho, Rosenthal - nowhere to be found. Not even a passing mention of whether they managed to create an effective long range emitter other than the suit for use by the blockading navy (The only tangible reason I can see for the aliens changing tactics).
We just get the only other interesting character (Prophet) offing himself at the start, where he would make the perfect protagonist.
As for the alien signal to M33... Why is this an either/or situation? They've sent a signal to another place. That does not mean they were alone on that island only, 'they were here before us' doesn't mean they originated here. They could be a lost scouting party who crash landed, lost FTL capability and dug in on the planet waiting for pick-up. Maybe they don't have FTL and travel on generation ships or in stasis. Even more of a reason to dig in, or hibernate. That signal could simply have been asking for the latest Ceph celebrity news for all I know.
They were here. they built their cities, they hibernated, their cities were buried over time, humanity popped up and started poking pointy sticks... welcome to 2023. Hargreave may have even had first contact, opened negotiations and pissed them off with his idiotic decadence.
Bottom line, we still know nothing. Although the current form of the storyline is a tangible development considering what we know of the Ceph to begin with, Crysis 2 will forever be seen as 'that pretty shooter that forgot to make sense'.
Crytek, wake up and smell the ashes, or be left in them when Gabe Newell stops procrastinating about release dates and his weight. At least the 'Mysterious' Combine overlords don't skip the middle of the script to copy Micheal Bay.