Unlocked this earlier today on PC with a VPN and got to play it for a couple hours before I had to go to work. I realize there's been quite an uproar in the PC performance thread about the various issues the game is having, but I guess I'm lucky enough to be able to overpower them with my PC which is, admittedly, a recently built, very powerful machine. I'm playing at 1440p with all the settings at ultra and the game performs well and looks great, aside from a large amount of aliasing, which is unfortunate.
I was a huge fan of the first Dishonored, mostly for all the creative ways it let me be a murderous bastard, and the second one seems like the developers have upped the ante in all the right ways. I'm playing as Emily for my first go and, while I'm still early on, it seems like there will be no shortage of abilities, powerups and weapon upgrades to customize my playstyle with. That's one of my favorite things about these kinds of games, I'm driven to keep playing because I want to unlock that next satisfying skill or upgrade, and Dishonored 2 looks like it'll deliver in that regard.
The level design, which was a highlight in the first game, seems like it could be even better here. The first proper level, set in Dunwall, was large and vertical, with plenty of hidden nooks and crannies to find all manner of gold and ammo. When I completed the level, thinking I had explored pretty thoroughly, I was shocked to see that I had found just over a third of the available gold in the level. That's crazy, and it bodes very well for another play through as Corvo. Movement, once again, feels great, you can go pretty much anywhere if you're clever enough, and everything from the blink ability you acquire early on, to thrusting your sword at enemies has a good feel to it.
Finally, like the first game, I'll be playing this one as an murderous psychopath. Granted, once I got the hang of the sword combat, the first level did feel pretty easy because of this, as it didn't take all that much skill or effort to just kill everyone rather than sneaking by them (on normal) but that was the case in the first Dishonored as well and I actually kind of like the power trip. My stats screen after the first level said that I had killed 28 guards and 2 civilians, my only regret was that I didn't find more civilians to kill.
I'm curious, since I know it tends to go against the grain of most people on GAF, who else here is going a full-loud, psychopathic run and gun play through for their first time through the game?