Since STALKER 2 was canceled, this is basically the only game I'm planning on purchasing day 1 (and possibly preordering). One of the developers behind Thief, System Shock, and Deus Ex, the studio behind Dark Messiah and Arx Fatalis, and the artist behind Halflife 2. It's like videogaming's The Expendables!

We'll see, though.
The gameplay is apparently built around extremely emergent interaction and sandbox experimentation. Like Crysis meets Thief.

My, my, finally something to get a big dick about. If the gameplay is anything similar to DX:HR Ghost Pacifist, I will be all over this bastard.

That sounds precisely like my cup of tea (the stealth bit).
I'm on my 3rd playthrough of HR right now, Ghost Pacifist again.
Never done a gunplay attempt, but I doubt I'll find it enticing in the slightest.

He did one run where he seduced the target into following him so it should be good...

"Dishonored is out-performing Bethesda’s expectations, the publisher has confirmed, cementing the property’s place in its stable."

http://www.vg247.com/2012/11/27/dishonored-we-clearly-have-a-new-franchise-says-bethesda/

I played up to where you have to kidnap a guy after crossing two bridges and stopped, does it improve after that? I just couldnt get into it for some reason.

Necro-ing this for some impartial reviews. It's on sale for £15, How does it compare to say Thief 3? I've heard that the stealth isn't that good, and that because of that it really damages the game.

What are people's views now the hype has settled?

Converting it to Euros (or Pounds, whatever it is. They came up as about the same price) would make it about $25, which is about the price I bought it for. I have to admit, at that price, it's worth it, but at full price, it just barely justifies it's price. Never played Thief 3, but I have played DX: HR and I can compare it to that in that it has (but does not require) stealth. Obviously DX is better, but Dishonored is at least worth checking out. I'd hold out until it goes 75% off if you're really looking for the stealth elements because, to be honest, the stealth is (to use my dirty American slang) "kinda janky"

Thanks. To be honest I was underwhelmed by DX:HR, so if this isn't as good I think I'll be leaving it for a bit.

I was also underwhelmed by Human Revolution (which struck me as bland in virtually every possible way), but I thoroughly enjoyed Dishonored. The main story is forgettable, but you get an item called The Heart that comments on important people/areas and easily makes the whole thing worthwhile. If you're the kind of person who rushes through games you'd probably miss all the little details that makes the game so good, but if you're the type to seek out hidden items and try an item like The Heart on a bunch of different characters, you'd most likely enjoy the game.

Not sure what janky stealth means, but I played through stealthily with only a few kills and no problems. In fact, stealth felt more natural in Dishonored than in most games I've played. It just required you to be creative since you can't walk around with a million and a half sleep darts.

The whole thing felt like a first-person, Steampunk Hitman game to me, honestly. There are some set creative ways to take out targets, or you can just go through killing everything that moves (though this gives you the "bad" ending). I guess some people didn't see it that way, though.

I think the problem I had with Dishonored was that, once you buy skills, the game is broken, it's probably unplayable without skills, but when you buy skills it's too easy, the story was pretty meh for me too.

Too bad Im terrible at stealthy games or I would give it a try

It's not really that the stealth isn't that good, IMHO it's tons better than Dx HR, less random, it's mostly that it's a more fun when playing "non stealth" or at least non-peaceful as you have tons of cool deadly powers. Also even at the highest difficulty level and without investing in combat power, Corvo is still a very competent fighter, so even if you badly mess the stealth part you can still easily dispatch/evade the guards; unlike Thief stealth is just "an option" not the only valid option if you want to survive.

But otherwise, the level design is a lot smarter than DX:HR, a lot less "hey look a cardbox, maybe there is a ventilation shaft leading to alternate route behind.", you really have multiples possible route and they make sense. And the blink power is really fun to use to navigate around silently and rapidly.

Waiting for Theif 4 (with not that high expectation I must say) it's probably the closest you can get.

Just a personal advice, if you plan on playing stealthy I would recommend to not get the "Dark vision" power, it's basically the "cheat" power, IMHO it gives you too much info and you can abuse of it without wasting any mana.
I finished my first playthrough (ghost/pacefull) with only upgraded blink, for stealth you hardly need anything more. But it's true that if you go for the "killing machine" route the game is suddenly a lot easier as you don't have to worry about getting detected and have lots of deadly powers to quickly dispatch any opposition.