There are few factors which you should consider before investing in an ICO like:
Motive of the ico: Why are they doing this? If its simply to provide a return on an investment, then buyer beware.
Experience of the Team: What has the team executed on in the past, together? It should first and foremost be technology related.
Capital Structure of money: How much crypto are they offering to the public? Gauging demand for a crypto is key
Raising the adequate amount money during their ICO: This connects directly to the point above. If they raise too much money during the ICO, theyre going to have to clear loads of flippers. These flippers are those that purchase tokens during the ICO and as soon as the team lists the token on the first exchange.
Yeah, the flippers could be a problem for any ICO. Actually some of them have a kind of proof-of-caring in the ICO phase to avoid these flippers and to have people "on board" which believe in a long-term success of the project. Obviously this proof-of-caring methods can also be manipulated by the flippers or they are also a sort of spam from the ICO team. I don't know actually how many of the ongoing ICOs do have this "proof-of-caring" because in the beginning it can also have a negative effect on the tokens sale.