I have actually heard that excuse used for other shooters when it comes to bodies disappearing or the enemy being repetitive-looking clones, but I'll admit it always did feel like a bit of a gimmick to explain shortfalls in the game's technology. I think Deus Ex (the good one) had that as a fan excuse for the copy-pasted looking NPCs but uh, I think that was actually just because the game was really old and had texture and memory limitations.