I believe Yahtzee summed Bioshock up quite nicely in the last bit of his "review"

It went something along the lines of "If you're a console gamer used to boomfests like Halo, then Bioshock is going to be Teh Shit, but for all us others out there this game feels more like a kick in the balls. A quite pretty and well executed kick in the balls, but at the end of the day you're still walking funny."
For what it's worth I enjoyed Bioshock enough to buy the sequel too. The gameplay is kinda bothersome though the plasmids to shake things up enough to be interesting. What makes the game worth playing is the graphics and the world to explore. In that regard it quite matches Gamespot's initial review of Half-life 2: Great atmosphere, sub-par sound design, run of the mill gameplay mechanics you have seen before. 9/10

How is the Darkness? I'm not interested in console shooters but there is a sequel coming to the PC. Is there a freedom of brute force vs stealth to the way you go through the levels like Butcher Bay or Deus Ex?

Not really, it's more a relatively standard shooter with special powers.
But the story is well presented and the voice acting is good as well, thus making it a very enjoyable ride. The levels are nicely varied and a good mix of corridors and open spaces.
All in all, it's a good game and well worth playing.
Just my opinion of course, but I don't really like console shooters so I like to think a game has to be pretty decent before I consider it 'good'.

Well, yeah, there aren't as many ways to approach the objectives are there are in Deus Ex, it's generally just choosing between using guns, using your super powers or a combination thereof, it might not be a good comparison in that way, but I was more thinking of the tone/presentation and how it, like Deus Ex, makes the world seem very open, despite actually being rather linear.

The sequel isn't being done by the same team though, so it's a bit early to tell if it will be a similar experience, judging by the footage that's been shown so far it seems like it might be similar.