@Demoskinos:

I did, you're correct. It's a new challenge; old tricks may not work the same on the harder difficulties. I thought the game was worth the purchase after playing through it. The positives outweigh the negatives.

Okay. After my post yesterday I finished the game and my disappointment has lessened, but it's still there. I gave up trying to have fun with the "get from point A to point B with the only available disguises being the guys who are hunting you so you'll be spotted at 100 yards in the peripheral vision of a guy who is looking in a trash can" levels with stealth and played those sections like a third person shooter. That made it a lot more fun for me, but it still wasn't what I was looking for out of this game. When played that way it's Hitman The Movie: The Game -- lots of action and shootouts with some sneaky assassinations thrown in. 

Yeah, just did a 2nd playthrough on Hard, and while it's not a bad stealth game, it's a bad Hitman game as most people say. I haven't played the 2nd game, but Codename 47 / Contracts / Blood Money were all about exploring the environment, planning, and orchestrating the hit however you want. I spent so, so much time just hiding and hopping from cover to cover that perfecting a hit neither satisfied nor entertained me in the end. Sorry, Hitman needs a reliable disguise system to work, the whole premise of the series depends on the disguise system to work. This one was inconsistent, and most of the time, didn't make a lick of sense in the games diegesis.

I don't take issue with the x-ray / environment hint instinct vision since all the previous Hitman games had a map that showed all the interest points and NPC's in the level with color codes, which is absent here, so I see instinct as a compromise for that. All cool. The heavy instinct penalties on professional modes defeat its purpose though, so I'm kinda glad I finished it on normal first.

Especially in a year where I had the chance to play some stellar stealth titles, this was more of a letdown than I expected. But since I'm a naive individual I look forward to the next game, in hopes that SE Montreal does a better job with it. And hell, I'll probably end up purchasing the professional deluxe version, always wanted meself a cute version of 47.

Oh well, at least Contracts mode is fun, maybe way more fun than the campaign.

Nope, the more I play it, the more I love it.

I'm extremely disappointed, I'm not sure I can even bother anymore.

It just doesn't play like a Hitman game to me, which is what I wanted.

My biggest problem with the game is the checkpoint system, it's fucking broken. If a game is heavily trial and error orientated then having a save system that doesnt work as intended makes things incredibly tedious. I dont know if the PC version has hard saves/quick saves but it would make experimentation a lot less arduous.

Other than that I dont have many comparisons to draw from I played Silent Assassin when it first came out, I thought it was decent but quickly got tired of it. Contracts felt kind of stupid and Blood Money was somewhere inbetween. So far Silent Assassin is my favourite Hitman game. Mainly because each assassination felt more varied and they didnt go too far into Agent 47's character which I appreciated. Although I am enjoying the story of Absolution mainly because of how insanely over the top the antagonists are.

I'm about 3/4 through the game and am pretty disappointed although not as disappointed as most others are. I personally think it's better than Blood Money and was really disappointed in Blood Money despite the fact that that one seems to get the most love. The gameplay just felt way too clunky in Blood Money to ever truly enjoy it. There are plenty of things in Absolution that does bother me, but at least the movement never really feels awkward or anything to me like it frequently did in Blood Money.

Considering I like the Hitman games, but never fully played through any of them or had much attachment, I bet I will still enjoy this one.

I'm with the sentimentalists on this one, I prefer the old style of Hitman games. I miss the wide open levels, exotic locales and an actual map where i could see all the guards. It's still a fun game but it's just not the game i used to know and love :(. Although i admit this game does have a lot more unique kills and fun disguises. My favourite mission has to be the courthouse because of what you can do with the judge's outfit. I really liked using random melee weapons to kill goons too, the animations are really fun and cool to watch. It's a pity not everyone will be able to see it because they are trying to get the highest scores. I would love to have had another score based on my ruthlessness.