Then it's a pretty shit assassin game yet, because I've already got one. People everywhere are crowing about how awesome the Ball level is when there about 10 NPCs, discounting the patrolling guards. It's very underwhelming when I know that there is a better "DISGUISE YOURSELF AND GO TO A CROWDED PLACE AND FIND THE TARGET" mission in another game. At the end of the Sokolov level in his glass palace, said "Wow, this feels exactly like a room out of Batman: Arkham Asylum." It's made all the worse when you get to use said Detective Vision.
And there is big difference to me between the Thief games and this one. Where I felt the intensity of having to jump out of a window to avoid someone or having to find a way to shimmy onto a roof to find a better way in, I can just teleport outside before someone turns around and back in again or leap up onto the roof with level 2 agility and blink. Everything requires far less effort, which begs the question to me "Why does it matter?" What is this offering me? It's certainly not challenge. I beat the entire game on the hardest difficulty, using non-lethal takedowns on every single target, killing maybe four people throughout the course of the game, and snagging almost every rune and bone charm.
 Spoilers! |
I also unlocked every safe and completed most of the side missions. My favorite bit was the near the end with Granny Rags and Slackjaw. I knew that bitch was crazy. |
All this in under 9 1/2 hours. Now I'm going back and ghosting the levels, which basically consist of me foregoing every single optional part and doing the mission as fast as possible, not bothering to set up elaborate traps or deal with sidequests or safes.
The world is well designed, but feels very sterile and unpeopled to me. I finished the game with feelings of ambivalence and wondered why anything mattered to me at all, not recounting a single "THIS WAS MY FAVORITE PART IN THE GAME" moment.
I'll never make a comparison between it and Deus Ex, though. They're nothing alike to me and there's certainly no feeling of "WHERE AIRDUCT?"