Few missions in and I'm liking Dishonored. Not loving it. Abilities like Blink and Possession are wonderfully powerful but overall I'm not finding the stealth gameplay all that innovative or exciting. One or two exceptional emergent moments, but it's been fairly standard for the most part.
The world seems interesting and well thought out on the surface but it's also quite lifeless and the segmented areas do no favors towards establishing a sense of place during the missions. I'm not really liking (or hating) any of the characters at this point, story has some interesting hooks especially in the written pieces but they could have done more to integrate those ideas into the game itself. Let me witness and learn about more stuff in the open instead of having to simply read about it. Corvo's revenge plot is surprisingly straightforward, but that doesn't bother me - uncovering all the things that make Dunwall tick is incentive enough.
My biggest letdown so far have been the nonlethal takedown payoffs. No matter how fun the setup may be, in practice they've all been incredibly anticlimactic so far. After hearing so much about the Pendelton brothers choice specifically, which sounds incredibly cool as a pitch, I couldn't believe that
was the way it played out in game. Developers, please don't talk up cool moments in your games if they aren't actually going to be cool moments.
Still having fun, love the art direction and gameplay is satisfying enough to keep me going. Just not a game I'd lavish unconditional praise upon, at least 8-10 hours in.
