Dessimu: It's exactly the way I'm playing now :P A non lethal approach. After that I will definetly play again. And again. And...again a few times :D
The first time i played it, it was a mix of stealth and lethal approach.. Then the second time it was stealth only.. The third time was full lethal John Rambo style! The 4th time will be entirely stealth on ultimate difficulty and i'll try to achieve "Ghost" status if I can..
NoNewTaleToTell: The few times I toyed around (you know, saving then toying around and then reloading) with melee it seemed like you could finish each level in fifteen to twenty minutes max but stealth/non-lethal would take an hour.
In my first playthrough, i was toying in every situation (like i do with all great FPS that have quicksave) and i was really taking my time. I finished the first level in 5 hours. That's right, five hours! I must have beaten the whole game in about 35-40 hours, way too much for a 12-13 hour game... that's of course counting the quickloading i've done after trying all kinds of insane stuff!
It has to be one of the best value for money i've had for a while, considering i bought it for under 10 euros and had all the DLC (not the usual DLC stuff - they are actually expansions like they used to be in the past). And we're talking about an FPS here, not a 50 hour long cRPG!
NoNewTaleToTell: [...] using a non-lethal/stealth style and eventually got bored and put it back on my virtual shelf. [...]
I guess you had never played Thief, right?