Seriously, this game is 13 years old, and while its friendly AI are admittedly thicker than a frozen milkshake, the enemy AI wouldn't be out of place in a modern game. They flee when outgunned, push forward when they have their advantage, evade, hell, a lot of enemy AI in current games don't have as much self-preservation. 

Yeah, there's been refinements over the years, but outside of scripted moments, baddies today still run through simple, predictable routines in most games.

It would be seriously cool if a game was made today with that as its major focus rather than graphics; bad guys that seem genuinely intelligent. 

Every gen, they say that we'll have better AI and every gen it doesn't seem to happen. They just focus on the same thing they always do. Graphics and performance.

I read a long time ago that it would be easy to create characters that react realistically but that gamers would be frustrated because they wouldn't feel overpowered or that good AI would easily overwhelm them. That "good AI" is playing against a human in multiplayer.

I remember playing Syphon Filter on PS1 and there was this part where I had killed all but one guy. This motherfucker was trying his best to stay alive. He was running when I tried to rush him and sticking his head out from cover only to fire at me. Yeah, it's been over a decade and a half since I played that gane and it may not even be as good as I remember but fighting that one guy was pretty awesome.

You can't take fancy screenshots and have resolution fights over AI so developers are not going to focus on it.

Sadly digital foundry doesn't focus on it either nor do the whole 720 vs 1080p generation of gamers so there isn't site hits to be had by focusing on it either.

The AI in Halo 4 is actually among the best I have seen in a game, some enemies behave in a very unpredictable way.

You can't market AI like you can with Graphics!

You didnt play alien isolation it seems.

I think Gears of War has done a great job of making you face enemies that seem smart enough to put up a tactical fight but dumb enough to die. One of the best things about that series, imo. I kinda hate cannon fodder.

I did actually; a good and underrated game in my opinion, with excellent AI, at least on the Xenomorph.

But AI for an animal predator is a bit different to AI for an intelligent fighter.

And that's the real reason.
In most singleplayer games there are huge amounts of enemies vs. you and perhaps 3 other team mates. It's just an unrealistic scenario and by making the enemies more intelligent the result would become more realistic (= you being dead) and that's not fun.

In other games, where there's a 1-on-1 situation (fighting games) or games where the AI competes with you and other NPCs (racers), the AI can be really good. Because it's fair.

In player vs. player multiplayer matches, the number of players in each team is the same or at least nearly the same. Again, fair.
Now imagine team A playing with 2 players and team B playing with 15 players. That's not a challenge. It would result in a frustrating experience.
Solution to that problem:
- have the same amount of players in each team
- give team A more health, better weapons etc.
- give team B less health, worse weapons etc.
- only allow players to join team B that are way less skilled than the ones in team A

and the very last of these points is exactly what developers are doing with NPCs in singleplayer games.