Its good when games are fun.
As someone who never really played a stealth game before, I had a lot of fun with Hitman Absolution. Its not a perfect product, but its polished and just plain fun to play, which is what really matters in a video game.
Hitman: Absolution is designed so that you can play it however you'd like: you can slink around in the shadows and never be seen, you can take someone out and don their outfit, or you can shoot your way through the enemies; as long as you reach your target, its Mission Passed. There is a score system that pushes the player towards a stealthy approach, but unless you are concerned with leaderboards and beating your friends' scores, they don't really matter.
I found the funnest way to play HItman: Absolution is to buy into the games' gimmick and put on a disguise, carefully plan my movements, and use the games' Instinct mechanic (which makes it harder for enemies to detect you) to navigate to the target. The shooting in the game is serviceable, but not good enough to play through the game as a third person shooter. I found a more traditional Hitman approach to be much more rewarding.
The story is nothing special, but well handled and intriguing at the least. The real aspect of note in Absolution's production is the voice cast; Powers Boothe, Keith Carradine and Vivica Fox (among others) join David Batesman (Agent 47) with some cheesiest lines in a video game in recent years. The writing is quite good, and the whole game has a great balance of self-serious and over-to-top themes (especially some of the more extravagent costumes) that keep the game interesting.
A few cons:
The cutscenes have an odd smokey effect that is just plain unnecessary and detracts from the storytelling.
The scenario of the AI deciding that you are not a threat after losing sight of you for 30 seconds, despite you having murdered any number of their comrades, is still very much a part of the game. I understand this may be because IO Interactive wants to accomodate all playstyles, but again, I think this detracts from the game.
There are a few areas in the game with ridiculous lighting that cause the game to drop to around 40 fps down from the rest of the game running at a smooth 60. The difference is noticeable (at least to me) and takes me out of the moment a bit.
All in all, a very fun game that keeps the gameplay interesting and entertaining for the whole playthrough.
The game took me about 14 hours to beat with my playstyle, which is quite good and long for a non-open world AAA title.
Highly recommended.
