Don't dishonor yourself by passing this by.
In the lead up to release I feel like Dishonored had a lot of hype.
It was heralded as being in essence, a steampunk Deus Ex and I'd say it lives up to that.
You're doing a lot of the same things you'd do in Deus Ex.
There are security systems to hack.
Such things aren't as prevalent here, but there are deadly light barriers and electrified turrets of sorts that can be either disabled or turned against your enemies with the use of a hacking tool.
And there are vents to traverse, though most of the ones here you'll need to possess a rat to fit inside.
It's not just rats that you can take over. Fish are also handy things to inhabit should you wish to infiltrate by water, though you could also just possess a card - though possession of people is a larger drain on your resources. That being said potions are generally plentiful enough, so unless you're playing on a higher difficulty or are simply going to town on folks with wind gusts or something a possession here or there shouldn't be an issue.
Like that other game that I'll try my best to not name any more there are also multiple routes to get where you need to, which allows a good deal of replayability and encourages exploration. Off the beaten track you'll find many Bone Charms, which give slight buffs and Runes which can be used to purchase new abilities.
Corvo has a lot of neat tricks up his sleeve, but Blink is probably the most useful of them.
Not only does it get you from cover to cover with relative ease, but it can also be used to scale the environment vertically should the need arise and as that's generally a good way to sneak into a building or over opposition, I'd reckon you'd be doing it often.
As handy as Blink is it's also somewhat unwieldy, I've missed many ledges because I couldn't get the cursor to line up just right and this is how the vast majority of my combat encounters have come about.
Combat is a relatively simple affair. Corvo comes armed with a blade, which can be used to stab dudes if they are unawares or engage in head to head melee combat.
There's a simple block and counter mechanic that makes one on one combat fun. Sadly combat is seldom a solo affair, so whilst you're tackling one chap another is in the background readying his pistol and getting ready to blow you away. Should the odds be rather uneven you have a pistol of your own, as well as the aforementioned wind power - which upgraded is capable of literally tearing multitudes of foes apart - as well as an assortment of mines, grenades and various crossbow bolts.
Running is always an option too, made easier by blink - though you've got ways to get yourself out of bad situations more often than not I found myself reloading to give the stealth route another crack. Only near the end of the game when I had more powers and tools at my disposal did I lean a bit heavier into the combat.
I feel like I should address the games length due to early reports that the game was only four hours.
I spent that much on the first proper mission alone. By games end I believe I spent around 13-14 hours with it, which isn't that bad. Your mileage may very though. If you're more of a completionist than I am, I'm sure hunting all the runes, charms, audio logs and other bits will keep you busy much longer.
If you're after that perfect run, longer still. Not going to say you can't possibly finish the game in four hours, because I'm sure if you flat out blink past non-crucial things or brute force your way through the game you could wrap it up mighty quick, but I'd hope most of us would know better than to do that.
This atmospheric, steampunk world is one that's well worth exploring and with two endings to get, as well as multiple routes and methods to accomplish the games various objectives you're given a lot of incentive to do so.
The only complaint I can really leverage against it and it's a bit of a non-complaint, is that there's nothing in the way of a New Game+. I'd have really loved to have been able to go back to earlier levels with some of the abilities I'd acquired later and mess around - but it's not a deal breaker by any stretch.
At the end of the day you don't see a lot of this type of game - both in terms of it's style of gameplay and the steampunk setting, so if you're after something a little different then I think Dishonored might be worth a stab.
