I'd say the stealth is well fitted to the game. Light plays a part (yeah, it just changes how close guards need to be to see you, I believe), footsteps play a part, you can throw things to distract guards, the AI has several alert states, trying to do nonlethal takedowns involves a time risk... it's not quite as intense or complex as Thief (not that Thief was particularly complex), but then sneaking isn't all the game is about either. They did a good job building the game around the mechanics and it doesn't feel noticeably simplistic IMO.

Wow that was short. (played it as stealthy character spamming saving and loading) The generic story even turned even more generic after the "plot twist."

Still a very fun game.

Just finished the party mission. Goddamn. The writing is getting more and more derpy. I like the network of relationships, but the awful VO and mechanical dialogues are getting on my nerves. Also how is it you guys finish the game so quickly? I've already clocked in roughly 20 hours so far. Although I do make it a point to try and ghost every level, find every heart/rune and complete every objective - without any compasses. Only levels I didn't ghost are the first 3 missions (prison break, High Overseer, twins)

The funniest thing is how they try to over hype the games voice acting tons in the previews saying they got a bunch of real actors/actresses in the game. The actual writing in the game doesn't annoy me though but hard to tell with the voice acting.

I don't get people bitching about length and story of this game. About length - it's at least 20 hour if you don't play they psycho way, but if you play psycho you miss at least 90% of the content anyway and I don't see why anyone would want to do that - pay 60 usd to run through the game and miss most of it? Oookay, but don't bitch about length then.
About story - what do ppl really expect? This is action/stealth game! If you want engaging story go read a book. Do I have to remind that Thief didn't even have a story until some 4th or 5th mission? Did that make it a less great stealth game or less great game as such?

Just finished it. I ended with High Chaos end, i had chaos meter low and then kill 41 people in one mission and all was doomed!

It took me about 19 hours, so good enough.

Now do it as a ghost...

It's quite a lengthy game, but it seems that a lot of the content lies outside the main path. I like exploring, but I'm not OCD about it, and I've clocked in about 14 hours and am nearing the end. I know there are some areas and side missions I willfully bypassed, and I'm sure there are others that I never even discovered. I look forward to replaying it to try out different approaches and see whatever I may have missed the first time.

RPS did an article about the playtime, actually:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/10/08/dishonored-length/

The problem with exploring is that's hardly necessary other for item scavenging or perhaps find all weepers but that's it. I didn't explore the entireity of every map but was able to find every blood charm and rune anyway, clocked in at around 25 hours. I can't wait to replay it and getting Ghost & No Kill on every mission but as it is now, there's no indicator that says if you have failed half way through the mission and would make the game unecessary long of boring replays just because a guard saw you but you didn't see his three lightnings flash or an unconscious body happened to fall through the floor for no apparant reason.

So story [url=http://www.mobygames.com/game/operative-no-one-lives-forever]stealth/action [url=http://www.mobygames.com/game/chronicles-of-riddick-escape-from-butcher-bay]are mutually exclusive. Okay.

Just for the record though I think the story is fine, at least thus far (am in the Flooded District). Writing =/= story.

I'm actually struggling with writing an article on that particular subject right now. Care to PM (or just post) some thoughts?

In this context, the problem lies with the dialogue and the presentation of the plot. The game relies too much on a weakly designed MacGuffin, which in this case is revenge. Straight to the point, it asks you to do this and this, but because it never really builds the rapport between you and the rest of the game world, the overall feel is bland. I never really developed the motivation to see more of the story; rather, I played just for the experience of ghosting. Thus, the experience becomes a railroaded - albeit fun - one, rather than being made compelling as it should have been.

See, to me that is a bad story not just bad writing because that is the actual structure of the plot. The writing itself in the game to me is the words the characters say which to me is hard to tell if it is bad or good at points cause the voice acting isn't good. But the writing itself doesn't seem particularly bad compared to many other video games I played. But maybe I just have higher tolerance for bad writing in games. =)

But a revenge plot can be good too, if the rapport and presentation are solid. See Max Payne and The Chronicles of Riddick.

Am I the only person who thought the Outsider was a shitty character? I mean utterly worthless. They should have just had him given Corvo his powers and then never showed him again or just had Corvo get the powers some other way. Instead they occasionally have him do some horrible monologues.