I expected to have some kind of linear tutorial level or something at the beginning like Thief Gold but nope. Other than some hint messages at the beginning Thief 2 seems to throw your ass right into the fire. It's like they know I just finished Thief 1. Mission 2 of Thief 2 already looks more complex than anything from the first game.

Actually, it's pretty straight forward. The controls are the same, just the graphics are a bit less crappy. I highly recommend you play it with the newest Taffer Patcher, though, because it introduces the unofficial patch that makes the game more playable and less buggy. It also adds new textures which really let the game shine.

What the heck man. When the third mission started I spent literally five minutes looking at the map thinking "how am I gonna do this?!" This is already more complex than any map I've seen in Splinter Cell or Dishonored or whatever.

you are aways free to grab the T1 demo and play the training mission. the link is in the sticky TFix post.

I got introduced to the series with Thief 2, and the lack of a tutorial level did not bother me at all, rather, I was happy to see that I got to start the game with a level that let me figure everything out for myself.

The second mission might seem overwhelming at first because of the spacious level design and all the interconnecting rooms, but once you explore a bit you can realise that this level isn't that confusing at all, and if you're playing on normal it can be finished rather quickly. Same with level 3, which can be shortened quite easily if you can find the hidden shortcuts. (It's actually one of my favourite levels in the game .) I love the level design in both Thief Gold and 2, which "spoiled" me, as I'm unable to really enjoy any "next gen" stealth game after these two.

Me too, but when I went back to play Thief 1 I was pleasantly surprised at how good the tutorial is. Completely optional, even on a first playthrough, and it actually sets the stage for the story and world of the game brilliantly. I wish more games would follow that example.

Absolutely. Also: This only goes to show how dumbed-down SC and DH are. However, once you master the Thief games, you'll dicsover that most modern games offer very little difficulty - Dishonored being a prime example.

It's not as hard as Theif 1/2 sure but play it on hardest, without any hand hold information and avoid using Blink and it's actually quite tricky.

True but I'm finding the maps extremely useful too :) especially in thief 2 which actually shows where you are on the map (most of the time).

OT: I agree the missions on thief 2 are more complex then 1 (playing these for the first time myself, up to mission 4/5 now) but the buiildings still "make sense" as buildings and so feel real. Not maze-like and contrived like a lot of games back in its time. In other words i'm finding navigation fairly easy.

It seems there is something true in the rumors that newer games are simpler and easier...

The thing is though, Dishonored is still way, way better than most modern games in terms of level design. When most first person shooters these days are a straight corridor of QTEs and "cinematic set pieces," it's a miracle Dishonored manages to have any open-ended level design at all. While playing Dishonored I was glad just to have levels that encouraged me to explore to any degree, and displayed any level of ingenuity in in their layouts. In all honestly, the only other first person game I can say this for that came out in recent years is Crysis 1.

And I'm not even gonna lie: I got lost in EVERY, SINGLE, LEVEL of Thief 2. I still finished the game, but it took quite a bit of fumbling around. My main complaint is that the maps didn't have a marker indicating Garrett's position, only what room he was in. Even Ultima Underworld marked your current position. Just adding that alone would've helped me a lot.

I'd like to believe that the lack of a definite location marker on the map was intentional on the part of the developers...Or at least that's how I've always perceived it. I'm sure they knew how to add such a marker, but they chose no to, so as to increase the game's difficulty. After all, being able to navigate yourself through the levels makes up a great deal of the gameplay in the Thief games. Using the map without a marker is also a sort of a test of one's spatial visualisation ability, which, in my opinion, further enhances the "thieving" gameplay experience.
(Just for the record: I got lost a lot too, when I first played Thief 2, so maybe my spatial visualisation ability just sucks. That didn't stop me from enjoying the game though:D)

Can you tell me if the Difficulty Mod for Disonored (http://www.moddb.com/games/dishonored/downloads/dishonored-ultimate-difficulty-mod-v04) works as advertised?

probably they just made it that way for realism - you are a thief looking at quickly scrawled map. it puts you right into garrett's shoes. in his place, he would not have a dot on the map telling him where he is as he moves so neither does the player.