Deadline is a tactical game with anti-terrorist themes and combined strategic planning / real-time action. It uses a third-person over-the top perspective much like the original X-COM, except in real-time.

The game pits you against everything from fanatical cultists (some of whom you're supposed to save from themselves), drug dealers, escaped prisoners, and even a disgruntled MIT professor with a high powered rifle. But terrorists will be your primary opponents in the later missions.

Your goal is to rescue the hostages and neutralize the bad guys, but you're also suppose to avoid blood and death on all sides. This means that you're not allowed to drown your enemies in their own blood, and the majority of them must be captured alive for you to successfully complete the mission.

Deadline also allows you to communicate with the terrorists (to a limited extent) through use of a vid-phone and negotiation mode. You can also dedicate time to research in order to get more information about the terrorists, hostages, location, etc. Each mission has an extensive history. But as the name of the game suggests there's a time limit and if you spend too much time twiddling your thumbs the hostages get executed and you're fired.