Smannesman: I finished the game a couple of days ago (no killing ending) and it's a good game, not a great game, but a good game. I think the story wasn't that bad actually, for a game story. Even the Deus Ex story wasn't that good really (taking a similar game where people didn't complain about the story as much), although that was in part due to the developers having to cut large portions of it. Perhaps the same happened to Dishonored. The only thing that really bothered me about the story of the game was how little character development there was, I really didn't (and still don't) care about the characters.
This is why I liked the high chaos last level more.... SPOILERS coming SPOILERS- In the last level all three dudes who betrayed you are fighting each other and being total jerksto each other which to me fits the game and how most of the characters were jerksI didn't care about. lol I also think it was far more dramatic and cooler how the badguy had Emily at the top of hte lighthouse and it just felt more dramatic. I also think her being a little jerk wanting to instill fear into everyone fit better with the overall dreariness of the game. The game is simply about some supernatural being giving you supernatural powers and I think depending on if you use them causing wanton destruction causes greater turmoil later on probably due to residual "negative chaotic evil energy or whatever." People may complain about low chaos being too hard or that the high chaos ending less rewarding but that is part of the point of having choices is that here is some kind of consequence involved. Note, I do think most of the story was done poorly BUT I think the last level in the high chaos setting helped bring it all together how crappy the world is and how you made it even crappier abusing your powers. The story also felt way too similar to Bioshock to me. except without the deconstruction of fundamentalist objectivism, less cool aesthetics, and doing a worse job caring about the little girl(girls in Bioshock case) whose fates are effected by your actions. That is probably what hurt Dishonored's story the most the game never really made you care about Emily. (Mass Effect 3 from the demo and reading the ending SPOILERS seemed to have a similar problem with how little it made me care about the boy who died in the demo.)ME3 and Dishonored show that having a child be in harm's way still needs good writing to truly appeal to the emotions Note, I think Bioshock even with the freaky little girls did a better job making you care about them.
Deus EX had better characters and Bob Page's voice acting was incredibly awesome especially in the last level. Also, Deus Ex 's story didn't involve the cheap plot device when it is done poorly of trying to make you care about a single child. Also, I think having the feedback of the characters throughout the levels helped the story feel more organic. Like depending on the route you take or your actions some character may make comments. Also, Deus Ex's writing was much more enjoyable and I felt did so much more even with much inferior budget and graphics and even worse voice acting at points... Dishonored I played through twice and i didn't feel much feedback until near the end of the game (but I was rushing a bit more second play through and didn't talk to the characters as much in the hub area cause the story really isn't the game's strong suit.)
(BTW sorry for the wall of text, editing on GOG is annoying cause it keeps "forgetting" about paragraph breaks. I don't remember that always being a problem here... )