I just played through Absolution at my friends house. I don't have enough time for a review right now, but let me give you some positives and negatives.
+Very challenging, in a good way. You have to think about your movements carefully.
+The levels are filled with, well, life. There are a lot of NPC conversations and other things that make the levels feel alive. There's no such thing as a "static" NPC in Absolution.
+The A.I is amazing. Best A.I in a game ever. I'm not exaggerating. They respond to almost every situation differently and behave very realistically. Like, if you throw an object and break a window, the A.I will freak out, advise HQ, and then check the area, instead of just walking over to the window and staring at it. The A.I communicates a lot and can recognize missing patrol partners.
+The combat is better than almost every third person shooter. The shooting is responsive and the weapons feel powerful. The A.I is very challenging too, flanking, taking cover, and blindfiring. When I started a massacre in KOCT, the SWAT team guys were flanking me and communicating with each other like a real team would.
+Instinct is more useful than you'd think. You have to use it carefully, but it's very powerful. I'd rather have instinct then backing out into a map when I wanted to see where NPC's are. It's so much more smooth and well integrated then some magical map.
+The sound effects are incredible. Especially during the ominous
Spoiler
mission. I almost jumped when I first stepped into that level!
+Magic Pockets/Inventory System are actually handled fairly well. You can only carry a limited amount of weapons, but you can also dual wield any two SMG's or Pistols. I love that feature!
+Some levels are huge. The R&D level, Fight Night, Streets of Hope, and Hunter and Hunted are particular standouts. There's definitely some of the old sandbox levels.
+The amount of NPC's changes with the difficulty. During the final level, if you start on easy difficulty, the level is filled with regular ICA troopers. However, if you play on harder levels, they get replaced with heavy ICA troopers who have full body armor.
+Attack of the Saints is freaking awesome. Best level in a Hitman game ever. I can't describe how awesome the level is without giving you guys too many spoilers. You just have to experience it yourself to appreciate how amazing it is.
I want to clarify one thing before I get to negatives. The PC Gamer guy who said that 60% of the levels are A to B is exaggerating. Maybe 60% of the checkpoints are A to B, but most of the levels overall have targets to kill. The first part of the Dexter Industries level is A to B with multiple paths of how to get there, but the second part is the actual facility with 3 targets and lots of alternate routes. I personally like that structure, as you feel like you're pushing forward towards an extremely heavily guarded compound.
-Some animation oddities. Like, holstering weapons and dragging bodies. I hoped IO would fix those before release, but apparently not.
-Some level sections in between checkpoints are disappointingly small. Some are huge, some are tiny. I wish that some of the smaller checkpoints could be combined into larger ones.
-The ending is a DLC setup. I don't know about you, but I would at least like more closure.
-Some targets don't have many accidental kills. The KOCT has a huge amount of accidents, but others don't have many. Maybe I'm not creative enough, I'll see when I get the game for real.
-The penultimate level is really freaking tough. It's the hardest level in a Hitman game so far, even more difficult then the caravan sniping mission from Hitman 2 (forget it's name). It's satisfying when you complete it, but dayuuuum. Not sure if this is a negative, but even on the easiest difficulty I had a ridiculous amount of failures.
Overall, I'll give the game a 9 out of 10. A fantastic game overall. There are a lot of changes in the level structure and other things from past games, most of them good, some of them bad. But if you can come to terms with some of the changes and understand why IO had to sacrifice the massive level sizes from past games, you'll think this is the best Hitman game so far. There are too many standout moments to count, and I found myself enjoying almost all parts of the game. I'm really tired right now and can't write a full review, but I still recommend it.