Waltorious: It's more than just the eye though. I also played Thief 2 first, and regretted that decision once I'd gotten to a certain point in the story and realized I was supposed to know what had happened in the first game but I didn't. I think the story flows really well through all three games, actually.
So I always recommend playing the games in order. But if the OP is really not enjoying the first game, then skipping to the second might be worth it.
tinyE: I've also found T1 also acts as a nice tutorial for T2. If you get good at sneaking around the relatively small levels of #1 then it makes you that much more prepared to handle the huge levels of #2 like the warehouse and factory. Plus, and back to your story point, MINOR SPOILER, I loved spending an entire game looking on Hammers as the ultimate evil and then all of a sudden find myself begrudgingly working with them.
That was a good point in the story. In fact, the story itself I found very strong, it was just the levels that got to me in Gold because I liked being around living humans more like they had in The Metal Age.
In fact, my play order, with no breaks was TMA, Gold, TMA a second time. It is worth going through Gold once for the story if you can stick with it though.
