Pretty damn good.
If I could sum it up, I'd say "Hey, remember Dishonored? Want more of that? Here it is." It's more of the same, which is a blessing and a curse. There's a few new tools, new powers, a crafting system but the game still holds onto the core of its predecessor.
One highlight that I can appreciate is that guards are (Slightly) less dumb than some other stealth games. They manage to notice when doors are open, or when their fellow patrol buddies are not at their post. This puts them on an unpredictable patrol pattern for a time, but ultimately they do end up going back to their own patrol if you hide the bodies (And yourself) well enough. Still, it spawns a lot of intense "Oh crap" moments which is a feeling I can't seem to get out of stealth games anymore.
Dishonored also continues the general trend of light levels not meaning squat - After so many years of Splinter Cell, Skyrim, and Thief that have all trained us to stick to the shadows - Line of sight is more important here so there is an adjustment period if you've played all those other named games and found yourself getting detected damn near instantly.
It's keeping my attention more than the first game did, to be fair. There's more exploration to be had, sweeping entire Apartment complexes and taking everything that isn't nailed down. The aforementioned guard behavior also make this one leagues more interesting.
I can't yet speak on Dishonored's replayability, however early on you are given a choice to go the entire game without any magical powers. An interesting design choice that very likely locks you out of some treasures and thus makes upgrading slower, but it's certainly a choice you can make if you're confident enough in your abilities. I also don't know if there's a New Game Plus, which I feel any game with RPG elements should have these days as there's nothing like replaying those levels that kicked your ass and just turn those tables.
I won't deny the game could use some patching. I, too, have had an odd hiccup in performance. Strange, graphical errors and so far a single Crash-To-Desktop in my five hours of gameplay. I have also run into two glitches that I had to Google, both results came in saying it was a 'known' issue. One example was that I took two guards out before they tortured/killed some kind of janitor or custodian, who had a key to a room with a lot of resources in it. For some reason, after choking out the guards he refused to talk to me and only muttered his cowering dialog. This took away a fair bit of coins I could otherwise have had.
Nothing so far has been a dealbreaker and I play on "Very High" settings.
Still, if you have a decent rig and take some advice on which settings to tweak to minimize these issues; The game is a worthy buy.
If I could sum it up, I'd say "Hey, remember Dishonored? Want more of that? Here it is." It's more of the same, which is a blessing and a curse. There's a few new tools, new powers, a crafting system but the game still holds onto the core of its predecessor.
One highlight that I can appreciate is that guards are (Slightly) less dumb than some other stealth games. They manage to notice when doors are open, or when their fellow patrol buddies are not at their post. This puts them on an unpredictable patrol pattern for a time, but ultimately they do end up going back to their own patrol if you hide the bodies (And yourself) well enough. Still, it spawns a lot of intense "Oh crap" moments which is a feeling I can't seem to get out of stealth games anymore.
Dishonored also continues the general trend of light levels not meaning squat - After so many years of Splinter Cell, Skyrim, and Thief that have all trained us to stick to the shadows - Line of sight is more important here so there is an adjustment period if you've played all those other named games and found yourself getting detected damn near instantly.
It's keeping my attention more than the first game did, to be fair. There's more exploration to be had, sweeping entire Apartment complexes and taking everything that isn't nailed down. The aforementioned guard behavior also make this one leagues more interesting.
I can't yet speak on Dishonored's replayability, however early on you are given a choice to go the entire game without any magical powers. An interesting design choice that very likely locks you out of some treasures and thus makes upgrading slower, but it's certainly a choice you can make if you're confident enough in your abilities. I also don't know if there's a New Game Plus, which I feel any game with RPG elements should have these days as there's nothing like replaying those levels that kicked your ass and just turn those tables.
I won't deny the game could use some patching. I, too, have had an odd hiccup in performance. Strange, graphical errors and so far a single Crash-To-Desktop in my five hours of gameplay. I have also run into two glitches that I had to Google, both results came in saying it was a 'known' issue. One example was that I took two guards out before they tortured/killed some kind of janitor or custodian, who had a key to a room with a lot of resources in it. For some reason, after choking out the guards he refused to talk to me and only muttered his cowering dialog. This took away a fair bit of coins I could otherwise have had.
Nothing so far has been a dealbreaker and I play on "Very High" settings.
Still, if you have a decent rig and take some advice on which settings to tweak to minimize these issues; The game is a worthy buy.