Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction

Been a huge fan of the Splinter Cell franchise and was really interested in this particular addition. The game makes some very gutsy change to this. Let me try to walk through what has changed as an old school Splinter Cell fan.  
 

• The new cover mechanic. Instead of tap a button to hug yourself on the wall, you need to hold down a button (right mouse button) to stay in cover - just like the Rainbow Six Vegas series, but in order to shoot out you pressing the fire button (left mouse) as if you were blind firing; alternatively you could "zoom aim" by tapping a button (middle mouse) and then pressing the fire button for better accuracy. Additionally, you can aim towards a nearby cover and tap a button (space bar) to shuffle yourself there; this drove me nuts at times, because there are moments where you have to aim very carefully in order to be on the correct side of cover to avoid enemies' sights - even with the precision of the mouse it was really difficult to get myself into cover space I wanted to go. I really wished they could've stuck with the original Rainbow Six: Vegas cover system as that would greatly improve those "action" sequences! 
• The dark and light. Instead of having a bar telling you how visible you are. They turn the screen monochrome color when you're hidden and colorful when you're visible. Another neat thing is that when you're hidden, objects that are still colored are something you can still interact with, so in most cases you'll be looking at explosive barrels or chandeliers to be shot at. It works, but I found myself at times wondering where can I be "hidden" as they don't quite make it clear at times which sections of the level is the area you can be hidden, so I found myself to be exposed in dark areas at times. Somewhat confused on this and hope the sequel can better emphasize the dark and light areas.
• More weapons. Instead of the typical load out gear from the originals, they give more options and the ability to upgrade your guns you collect. On missions, you can switch guns when you find weapons crates. I personally found myself just sticking with my pistol and upgraded it to the max. I didn't really care for much on the rest of the weapons. Aiming in this game felt like the original - not very accurate. Not only that, the pistol ammunition is unlimited - which seems like they encouraged people to get in there and go gun blazing.
• Mark and execute. Basically when you do a hand to hand take down on enemies, you get points to do instant death to upcoming enemies after your mark them. It's cool, but I rarely used this - it made me feel like I was cheating. For whatever reason, the pistol holds more mark and execute than the other rifle guns too. I'd imagine Fisher would be more accurate with a rifle than a pistol, but hey that's just me.
• Sonar goggles. Have you seen the Dark Knight? Of course you have, it's exactly like that, but when you move everything gets all fuzzy and blurry, so you have to stay still in order to get a grasp of what's going on around you. I got to say, it's a really cool effect, but I barely used this, as I used the old fashion look under the door and tag the enemies to see where they are.

• Sam Fisher feels like Jason Bourne in this. A bad ass who can take down enemies quickly.
• Story is pretty interesting if you played Chaos Theory and Double Agent. Voice actors/actresses were surprisingly good, but at moments it can feel forced.
• The graphics is not too shabby for the PC, but can be taxing and have some inconsistent frame rates.
• The more action oriented-ness of this game is cool, but...

• ... it just feels clunky at times and doesn't feel as polished as like R6:Vegas or Gears of War for a keyboard and mouse game.
• Level designs felt very constrained and small, as if they're trying to force you to only go certain paths. I found myself walking into "invisible walls" quite a few times.
• Potential DRM could kill the single player experience. I only had this happened once briefly, but during single player it popped up a message saying that it's trying to reconnect with the Ubisoft server for 2 seconds. After that though, the game ran with no pop ups.

• Played this game with a Intel E5200, 4 GB of RAM, and a ATI 4850. With settings: 1360x768, no AA, 4x AF. All in game settings were set to high. Minimum frame rates was around 20ish. Average frame rates was mid 30ish.
• Ubisoft's always connected DRM is like Windows Games Live, saves are stored online - which somewhat concerns me. I'm not a big fan of this DRM implementation, but it worked okay. I do not however support this type of DRM in the long haul and I think Ubisoft really should reconsider.
• I did not get the chance to play coop or multiplayer. I'm located in Asia and it seems there are rarely any players here.