Dishonored

As someone who hated the unforgivable AI of Deus Ex. I must say that the balance between awarding stealth and penalizing the player for aggression is well kept in Dishonored. It allows players to explore the world easily with great mechanics, but falls short by lacking hard hitting story beats or set pieces that would have propelled it to GOTY status. Not taking that last sentence lightly, I predict this will be on many peoples list for GOTY, just not at the top. The combat is smooth and realistic. Playing on easy a couple of slashes with a sword or a single gunshot kills an enemy. As great of games as Skyrim or Dead Island were, the first person melee is better in this game. We have seen Bethesda behind some buggy sprawling open world games before, but this more compartmentalized "strict" level designs lends itself to a bug free play-thru experience. Additionally load times are next to Zero if you install the game to your HD. The game is very generous with health and magic refills so players are encouraged to Spam powers and take on all comers regardless of the situation. One trope was this games version of detective mode called Dark Vision. I wound up spending all my time in the detective mode as it is most useful for navigating thru situations stealthy. That said the game could be played entirely without it, that is where Dishonored shines. It is my favorite game to date of this relatively undefined genre, Deus Ex RPG Stealth Fist Person Action?. Would it not be for this abundant fall lineup on our hands A second playthru with entirely different specs would be warranted. Bottom line is it is a great experience and a must play with a lot of potential for future entries.