Although not a horrific game, I think this is a step back for the "Deus Ex genre" - or whatever you want to call it. A hybrid of stealth and action - the action falls flat. You can run and gun in this game, but there's no omph to it. It's on par with the original Deus Ex in terms of pure gunplay. Or, maybe that's too generous - Deus Ex gives you a wide array of weapons over a decade ago. In Dishonored, you have three kinds of bolts to hurl with your tiny dart-slinger, and a shabby pistol. Action just isn't there, with gameplay revolving around running straight at enemies, using up your small ammunition stockpile, and then chugging mana potions while you hurl rats and wind about. There's very little to engage you, as most of the levels are extremely linear if you choose to take the action route. ||| The stealth side of things is better than I was expecting, but most of the depth of stealth is lost thanks to Blink. Granted, you can choose not to use the spell, but the stealth is balanced around it. And choosing not to use it simply makes every level a chore. In Deus Ex, sneaking involves passing through guard patrols, crawling through vents, utilizing security systems, and hacking. In Dishonored, stealth is patiently waiting about for your enemies to turn their heads toward the sea for a moment and seldom more than that. Occasionally you encounter a security system you need to bypass, but the ways of approaching those security systems involve blink, at least until you can slow down time. ||| What I'm trying to imply is that the depth of choice in Dishonored falls a little flat. It's easy to see that they tried, but the most striking failure of Dishonored is its lame level design. For a game as short as it is (… Expand

Another game that makes me feel increasingly alienated from this industry. There's been put a lot of talent, work and energy into this game, including marketing that promotes Dishonored to be about solving things in a creative way. All this is kinda sad, since ultimately, Dishonored plays just like another blockbuster which you'll forget about before tomorrow. Because: 1.) Stealth-gameplay is you waiting for enemies to look away, nothing more, because light isn't regarded, for example, i.e. enemies see you just as well/badly in broad daylight as within total darkness. Also, you only have really few options to be stealthy besides the "Blink"-skill, especially if you want to do it non-lethally (options: sleeping darts and choking... that's it, 2 options, there isn't even a blackjack). 2.) Action: Trying out the various gadgets and skills to lethally engage enemies seems nice, but just as with stealth, there isn't much tactics involved - it's repeating the same process over and over again, the skills just make it look differently. 3.) Personally, the seemingly unnecessary, overdrawn brutality you are invited to perform or is performed visually and story-wise just turns me off.. I never had any problems with the gore of the Dooms and Quakes and what not, 'cause they were silly games. But games like this, somehow, for my taste, are just... no, thank you... Feels like today's games are trying hard to impress little boys who want to be "really bad-as*", if you allow me that snappy remark.… Expand

I have to agree with others that have said this game is nothing special. It has a nice, Bioshock-style retro theme, and that's all this game has. If it had a contemporary theme and everything else was the same, everyone would be calling this the tedious piece of unremarkable **** it is. It's just boring. Bioshock has already done all this, but in a much more engaging way.

It should have been called "Dishonest" - this game delivers NOTHING it promises

Stealth gameplay? Sure, if you consider teleportation and basic "attack-from-behind or only at extreme distance" stealth. Light and shadow have NO impact whatsoever..enemies all have night vision, which YOU have to buy with a precious upgrade. There's also NO way to knock out enemies once they spot you except for a crossbow with sleep darts. Mind you that killing people makes the game get uglier, more rats and zombies and an even MORE terrible ending. Its like the devs were just laughing as they made this game thinking of how mad the Thief and Deus Ex fans would get when they realized they'd been f*#ked. 90% of everything in this game is stolen from Bioshock, Half Life II and other games - they don't even try to hide it. Anyone who says this is an "open world" is LYING. An "open world" is what you get with TES or FO..this is nothing like that. Its just levels with invisible walls like 99% of the games you've played before. Duke Nukem 3D was more "open world" than this!! The game is a cakewalk if you just kill everything which seems to be what the designers wanted. You're so overpowered by the second mission that you can clear a level in under 10 minutes if you want to..everything is handed to you on a platter, there's no real "searching" for anything. You even have a stupid BEATING HEART you carry around that points you to everything of interest, maybe the biggest joke I've EVER seen in a game. I bet the designers thought that was really edgy, LOL! There's a million empty bottles with nothing in them - well except for a few that explode a little (not enough to hurt anything but YOU). Low-quality graphics, stupid and useless abilities..I could go on but why bother? Name any game of this kind made in the last 10 years - its better than Dishonest-errr, DisHONORED.… Expand

I was really looking forward to something fresh or new alternate to the fps and rpg genres. Despite all the good review, the game was not mind-blowing or freshly innovative as the hype claimed. The graphics and plot to the game are good but that seems to be the only thing that keeps this game afloat. Personally, I would rather save the cost and buy some good old game like Fallout 3 or wait for the new release of Bioshock Infinite. After completing 3 missions the game was not thrilling enough to pull me back to play again-not better than something of Assassin's Creed stature.… Expand

The story is horrible, the writing and voice acting are even worse. The game's concept and location are cool but the gameplay mechanics don't work most of the time. This game is extremely overrated just like ever other game Bethesda publishes.

This is a ok game, not more than that. The story it's not good, don't have tha "feeling" at all. The graphics are PS3 graphics, it can be ok for a PS3 game, but not for a PC game. The Stealth its not so stealth, the combats are stupids

I don't get all the hype about this game, the producers are good peoples, the bethesda is great but this game sucks
I really want to like this game, but...

Picked up this game without watching any trailers and the moment I got the controls, Skyrim and Thief: Deadly Shadows popped up in my head like a prostitute wearing a party hat out of a cake. While by no means lacking in quality, the graphics are great, (For PC) story is decent and the game offers new ways to explore the sneaking-around genre with various "magic" abilities. The lacking parts however, are quite severe. The more people you kill, the worse ending you'll get and you cannot render enemies unconscious in combat by say, a club weapon or with the hilt of your sword but you must instead strangle them from behind (while undetected) or shoot expensive "Sleeping" bolts into their faces (In which you can only carry a maximum of 10 with upgrades). Challenge or not, you'll be extremely disappointed at the moments you simply must kill to progress in missions (Some allow a non-lethal approach but you'll still draw blood on some), leaving any kind of 100% perfect play-through impossible. I found myself just running through the entire game by repeatedly gulping down mana potions and stopping time because rendering enemies unconscious was an insane bother, like having to ride a unicycle up a mountain instead of taking the sky-lift. For sh!t and giggles, i went ahead and took Hardcore on my second play-through and wouldn't you know it, the game is still dirt-easy. Sadly a flaw that will forever appear in console-ports like this even if they do a good job with most of the stuff, the rest will be sticking out like a huge pimple.… Expand

One review for this game mentioned something about it being like Deus Ex and Bioshock had a beautiful child. A beautiful one, perhaps, but not a bright one. It takes a little from several games and doesn't really do anything special with it. The Good:

Powers are interesting and the horribly overpowered Blink can be quite a lot of fun. The world does look great, despite the character models. There's also the option of neutralizing your targets by methods other than murder, which is something I'd like to see more in games.

The Bad:

I can't really say it's boring, but the story certainly was. When the 'twist' came up, it was expected and I was a little disappointed that I had obviously finished that much of the game so quickly. It didn't help that we have yet another silent protagonist, which makes it tougher to care. Did he like the empress? Was he her lover/friend, or did he resent her for some reason? We'll never know, and the main motive being given is simple revenge which came off as, "STFU and play the game already". The interactions with Emily were nice, provided you chose to do them and chose the less deadly options.

The morality system was a major source of contention for me. For starters, it affects Emily's actions and outlook, and it bothers me that it's not explained how she or anyone else found out about whether or not anyone died. Sure, it could have been overheard, but with the ruling power being like it is, that's the sort of propaganda they're likely to spit out, regardless of what happened. Secondly, Corvo is frequently referred to as an assassin, but killing is what you get punished for. I should add that if you decide to go the non-lethal route, you'll be very limited in your choice of weapons. There is a round of ammo that puts enemies to sleep but, with a maximum of 10 rounds, you'll run out very quickly. Art style for the characters is pretty terrible with the exception of Emily and the Empress. Maybe this was done to reflect how monstrous the new regime is and if that's the case, congratulations are in order.

Finally, there's the stealth. Unless you're completely behind something or too far away, enemies will spot you. Staying in shadows is almost meaningless in this game. The lead level designer said, "In Thief the light is very very important. At the beginning we tried to be in the same mood: use the light, use the shadows. But we realised that when you're standing in front of an NPC like this [hand in front of face] it's not realistic - we must admit that. In the real world it's not like this."

Yes, we realize that it's not realistic, and there's an explanation as to why Garrett can do that. It just seems odd that someone would, in effect, say, "I'm sorry, it's not realistic for our rat summoning, teleporting, time stopping, body possessing, wind controlling, wall seeing through protagonist to do that because it's not like that in the real world." The other half of the claim is that the art direction inhibited this. Okay, got me there when you get to a well lit area, but what about when it's dark? To sum up, it's not a terrible game, but doesn't really deserve to be compared with the titans that are frequently mentioned, . Certainly not worth paying $50 or $60 bucks for, just wait until there's a huge discount on Steam or rent it. I'd give it a 4.5, but I don't have that option.

Let me rebut some comments here: "You rushed through the game!" I did not rush through the game intentionally. I read everything that could be read and listened to all the conversations and recordings (My favorite was when the guards were talking about how Corvo was probably hiding somewhere near them). "You can add a lot of game time just by doing it in stealth!" And? That's only a justification for a lack of content. How would you feel about a 2 hour FPS with 15 difficulty modes? That's 30 hours of gameplay!

"I don't understand why people are saying there's nothing new." That means you missed out on one or several of Bioshock, Deus Ex, Thief, and many other games with stealth or morality options. If there is something new, someone, PLEASE, enlighten me.

"It's a sandbox!" Not even close. You get taken area to area. Sure, you can explore a little, not like Elder Scrolls or Fallout though. You don't even have the option to go back to those areas unless you're required to by the plot. "People who don't like this game are too used to hand holding." Please. For starters, personal insults don't explain why you like it or why I'm wrong. Secondly, these are opinions which will vary wildly depending on the experience of the user. I played the games this one is being likened to back when they came out, so I see it as a copy of those. Thirdly, what do you call it when you have an item that tells you where items are, as well as UI markers telling you where to go?… Expand

Its overrated.

Terrible graphics and extremely short game-play.

Its very basic, just keep killing on and on.

Not challenging and quite straight forward.

Overall, its still a good game but its not worth the money.

Providing some balance to all the paid reviews :) If I was being totally honest, I'd give Dishonored a 3 (4 at most) for being unoriginal, lying about the stealth gameplay and other inexcusable design flaws. Sooo obvious it wasn't finished when they released it..tons of stuff they reference that ends up being placeholders. DO NOT BUY. If this gets GOTY from *anyone* it will only be due to bribery.… Expand

Here's what right with this game: * It doesn't crash. * Most of the voice acting is OK, but not without issues (see below). * It runs pretty well with everything maxed on a system that was considered high-end two years ago. Here's what's wrong with this game: * Everything from plot to mechanical design to you-name-it is a derivative mish-mash of Half-Life II and Bioshock, with a dash of FEAR, Assassin's Creed and even Oblivion tossed in for bad measure. Its painfully hacked together and non-cohesive, like the devs were fighting over which game world they most wanted to copy. Ironically, there are a few legitimately creative strokes tossed in, but their mostly lost in the noise. The backstory is almost painfully contorted to explain the bizarre mix. NOTE: I have only gotten through (I believe) about half of the game so maybe - just maybe - it makes a little more sense later on..but I doubt it.
* The graphics are about four years out of date. The male faces are hideous, hopefully due to a limitation of the Unreal engine and not artistic intent. Tim Burton wouldn't make men this unattractive, or women this identical. Even the dogs are ugly.
* Music, visual design, most of the characterization and plot elements make for a brooding, dark and depressing atmosphere. Seriously, does every game need to go down this road? I know its supposed to be a region gripped by plague, dark mysticism and a totalitarian conspiracy, but..sheesh, enough already! Not every setting needs to be an Orwellian zombie apocalypse. (Yes, Dishonored has zombies. Sigh.)
* The voice acting is decent and better than most Bethesda titles, but the R-rated swearing seems out of place in this steampunk world. It definitely hurts immersion.
* If you're going to sell a game as having multiple playstyles, then by the Nine you best deliver. Dishonored fails utterly in this regard. Killing is supposed to be optional, but good luck with that effort. First off, there is no way to disable an opponent in combat except by using sleep bolts in your crossbow. Once you've lost the element of surprise you can't choke out a person or dog (yes, I did this to a dog one time but it never gave me the option again). You play the royal bodyguard, one of the best fighters in the land, and you don't know how to knock a guy out? Hell, you've got a flintlock with a huge club-like butt - that's what it was designed for. You can carry ten sleep bolts and there are only a handful scattered through the missions I've played - and some are fairly hard to reach if you didn't put everything into movement powers. You can buy sleep bolts between missions and some missions have vendors who will sell them at an exorbitant fee, but if you rely on them for non-lethal takedowns you will run out eventually. BTW, you can upgrade your carrying capacity for normal bolts to 20. Normal bolts do damage and are an easy button for killing at range, superior to your useless pistol in nearly every situation. In fact, on the hardest difficulty the game presents no real challenge if you simply kill everything you see. But that's the real kicker with Dishonored: the game makes murder a cinch and then punishes you for killing. The city gets nastier and the game ending will get "darker" as your body count grows. I might add that anyone who dies during combat with you, be it from falling off a bridge or friendly fire from other NPCS, counts as one of your kills. I'm pretty certain even the dogs count as your kills.
* You only see your progress stats when a mission ends (i.e. body count, runes found, etc).
* There are some technical problems, at least on my system. The savegame routine is horribly botched and provides no way to identify saves other than which mission and level their from. Worse, it seems that old autosaves are never really deleted and pollute the list when you're trying to load a game. Trying to figure out which save is the one you need is a horrible sort of mini-game and hearkens back to the worst of Bethesda's sloppy programming (although Bethsoft may have nothing to do with the actual game design or coding). Sometimes character voices sound like their coming from the environment Corvo is in rather than the one they actually occupy. You'll be standing just outside the door to a tunnel and the NPC's voice will have no echo, as if he were right beside you. This makes for some confusing positional audio, making the bogus stealth gameplay even more of a joke.

To sum it up, this is a game that promises beauty, originality and multiple playstyles and delivers none of those things. Its a pretty stable console port of a mediocre game with confused, misleading design. I'd skip it or at least wait for some serious patches before giving it a go. And another thing: its very obvious there's paid reviewing going on with Dishonored. Don't think we don't notice, Bethesda.… Expand

TL;DR: The stealth and non-lethal portions of this game are weak when compared to similar games of it's type. The mechanics are not as good as others of similar style. It manages to break suspension of disbelief multiple times. The mechanics of the game are in the way of the game itself.

I tried very hard to like this game. I put in over 7 hours of play time, so I did indeed give it a fair shake. It contains many of the elements I enjoy. Stealth, no need to kill, cool abilities, and the ability to slow time. Your actions will even affect the later parts of the story, and even the ending. Yet for some odd reason, I was quite bored. Playing the game in stealth & non-lethal limits you to just two weapons (one type of ammo for the crossbow, and unarmed choke holds), which means an entire part of the game is unavailable to you. Yet the game strongly pushes you towards non-lethal by giving you a happier ending, and future areas are easier the less you kill. So on one hand it punishes you for being non-lethal, and on the other hand it pushes you to being lethal. It's not that the story really encourages either, it's that the game mechanics do.

The graphics and controls very much felt like a console game. Many of the controls were very awkward on a computer to start with. For example, to slide you hold shift and w, and at the last second tap c. Sure it's a doable combo, but it's awkward. Sure, the controls can be remapped. But it's just an example of how the entire game is meant for console.

The stealth is not very realistic when compared to other games. It only takes into account cover, and not things like shadows. Enemies don't think to ever look up, so if you go up, the game is too easy.

Once you are spotted, you have very little options for non-lethal. So your best option is to run and hide, and try again, which is very much a "two steps forward one step back" approach. So instead it's best to just sneak around choking people until spotted, and then reload.

Overall the mechanics of the game very much got in the way of the game itself. The UI often times was disruptive.… Expand

It's a pretty game. It looks old, but artistic direction does turn out here and there. That's probably the best thing I can say. Everything else is just so incredibly, incredibly bland and dull that I don't know where to start. Okay, let's start from the beginning: the story. You're thrown into it and from first 5 minutes (of which you barely understand anything besides plague and assasination), it's clear that story continues to be a experiment on writing a novel by a professional welder or truck driver. I literally had zero interest, let alone emotion as introductory part unfolderd. Next, steampunk. Now, steampunk settings in a computer game means usually 3 things: level design consists of pipes (excuse to be lazy), you'll be collecting cogs and scrap metal (why?), and third, whole point of thing is to avoid being creative and use conventional weapons and gear with some gears and cogs attached to fake unique look. It's all true with this one. Plus, steampunk always results in games that has story which falls flat, fails to be comprehensible or stops to be interesting. True again. To sum it up, it's somewhat pretty and incredibly boring first person shooter/Bioshock clone which I have no intention to complete, ever. Simply because I fall asleep after half-hour of a gameplay. Also, it's clearly evident that this is no PC game, even despite the port and very stable running in my experience. From general game mechanics to oversimplified combat and non-existent stealth, this game has nothing to do with PC gaming. I guess you could hook a gamepad to your pc and play it as a console game, but why in the hell would you want to do that? PC has way more first person shooters, which, for start, are GOOD. Dishonored is not.… Expand

This game touts itself as a game that lets you play your way..... It is not..... Everything is spoon-fed to you. You cannot beat this game even on the easiest difficulty without using your crappy unbalanced magic... The mask that you wear is just that...... a mask..... Oh wait... It's got a completely worthless zoom function? That makes it all better.... The gunplay sucks, the swordplay sucks, the story is ok. The world is pretty cool...
This game just failed to impress..... When this game hits the bargain bin, pick it up. At $60 it's not worth it...… Expand

Just avoid this game. The hype was unjustified beyond reason. Started the game on the Very Hard difficulty (the hardest of 4 difficulties) within 11 hours of gameplay I was on the second to last mission (had to check due to problem that will occur further into the review). This gameplay flew by the whole time I was thinking this has to get harder Im trying for difficulty but no matter what my approach, stealth or combat I found that nothing was an issue. Walking into a square with 12 people took them all down with 1 skill didn't need a weapon or any of the other fancy things the game offered. The entire game came down to blink on them push attack cut their face off and repeat. Health and mana potions were beyond abundant. I always seemed to have all full potions full health full mana and an abudance of ammo and money. As I progressed getting ever more bored and distraught with the game, I reached a massively game breaking error. The 2nd to last level you do (a very specific thing) and are met with a cutscene this is followed by a loading screen, Every time the loading screen ended it would replay the same cutscene and go straight back into the loading screen after 14 hours of leaving it on to load and attempting to restart to try loading again I finally gave up. The games setting was nothing new and nothing else offered by the game made me even remotely interested in restarting in an attempt to get past that bug.

The game is extremely dissatisfying and should be avoided. Gameplay 0 - The stealth mechanics are shotty, the AI is hilarious in its levels of bad, the originality is non-existent, Combat is laughable in its ease, Character development is non existent as well. Insanely short!
Concept 1- The game offers nothing new just a mesh and swarm of everything that's been done before put into 1 game, the sad part is every game it is using as inspiration is longer and has much more depth to every aspect that was "stolen".
Sound 0- Turned it off within 10 minutes, music was dull and never matched the pace of the game, sound quality during all game mechanics was the same... time always slows down, blink possess, opening menus, using any of your powers, blocking, swinging your sword... they all had the same sound effect of time slowing down.
Play ability - 0 - Game glitched tot he point where beating it became a physical impossibility no game that does this will ever be awarded anything but an absolute 0 in this category. In addition to this massive bug there are little ones that I constantly noticed around the game. Things like getting shot by a guy holding nothing but a sword, or killing someone only to have their dead body kill you as well (death by cutscene into they somehow managed to shoot while you were ripping their face off).
Replay -0- I dont think I would ever replay this game, I couldn't be bothered to replay it to see the ending of it and the only other 2 people I know agree that its so easy on the hardest difficulty that there is no reason to replay it.

Overall .25 which will be rounded down because they lose 1 point for un playable game. If I could neg this game I would.… Expand

The gameplay is excellent. Stealth and combat are exciting and unique. The story, however, is reaaaaaalllllyyy bad. The ending gets even worse. Most of the character dialogue is forced and there aren't really any dynamic characters in the game. The dramatic shift in the story is WONDERFUL, but that's the only time (for only like 10 minutes) that any of the characters become interesting. I was really hoping you'd get that feel of a huge expansive city like Assasin's Creed, but you end up playing on only a handful of really small, limited maps, with some replays of previous areas. This really hurts when you hit the invisible walls at the top or sides of the map, or just look in the distance to find cardboard cutout buildings instead of real models. There's a horrible contrast between interior detail and exterior. Building interiors are AMAZING, detail is great, and each has a unique feel. Exteriors are bland, with repeating textures EVERYWHERE, low-poly distance models, and many reused item models and textures.

Graphically, you have almost no options at your disposal, there's almost no customization in the game menus. You can force many options to modern standards through .ini modification, but to even have decent antialiasing you have to downsample or use Nvidia Inspector. Shadow detail is capped at a depressing level, but can be forced much higher without much of a performance hit.

Many levels have really clear A, B, or C type choices for pathways, so where you would like to be creative and find new solutions, you kinda get kicked into the mold. This hurts especially in the end, with your typical Evil/Neutral/Good endings. The game is SHORT. 9 hours on my assasination/clearing playthrough. It feels like the areas could have been doubled, a much better introduction to the story (through some theatrical expose to the plague and its history) would have actually given you some attachment to the characters. Because of how compressed everything is, you never build up an attachment to any of the characters. They're all flat and boring, and you're thrown onto them like you've known them all your life.

Overall a disappointment. Wait for it to go on sale.… Expand

So reading some reviews while I have not finished the game yet; the intro story wise falls completely flat. Its kinda just like this is a city and if you want to care about it you have to read 30 text journals hidden everywhere. Oh and were the good guys because we said so. Anyway story failure aside, I cannot possibly justify the cost of this game. 60$ is fine for a full game single and multilayer with more than likely a custom game engine. This is sadly not the case when I hear people beating the single player in only 7 hours and a bad implementation of the unreal engine(by bad I mean the graphics are absolutely atrocious not to mention there aren't any settings to change anything other than bloody rat shadows I mean really you've got to be kidding me). I'l give this game a 3 and hope it improves but I can't even force myself to play through more of this without giving myself a headache from crappy visuals… Expand

I don't know why there is such a hype for this game for being something fresh and new. I bought the game in hope to finally find a good first person assassination game after it got so many good reviews. But again it seems like the review sites got paid to give it a high score, I couldn't play the game for more than 3-4 hours. The combat is pretty boring and dull, you get some spells and other features that just make the whole game easier than it already is, if you want a challenge don't use any spells and upgrades. The missions are boring, along the main story you get side quests that don't really give you any benefit. The game promises freedom and choices that have influence in the game, but the freedom they promise is pretty much if you want to run through all the guards to your goal or use the roofs or sewers, and the choices you make in the game end up to nothing. The atmosphere in the game has potential but the graphics ruin it, it would have been much better using realistic graphics than this comic stuff. The game is basically linear, getting easier with every spell and upgrade, and a dark atmosphere being ruined by comic graphics. If you played something like Deus Ex or Thief, don't buy it, you're gonna be disappointed.… Expand

The game is lacking, its just a scripted play-through story basically. There is no real depth, the character doesn't feel like your own, and everything you do feels scripted. I played for a few hours, but couldn't get into it, I have tried to open the game twice since and can't play for longer than 15mins. I love some of the companies other games, but this was a let down. If I had to describe dishonored in a phrase? Sub-par! Its just not what I was expecting. The game gives you the feeling like they were trying to copy Assassins Creeds success, but they failed. The new Assassins Creed kicks dishonors butt. If you really want to get this game, and you're unsure wait until its $25 on steam for sale! I am interested strong in this title, and because of the company and the hype I fell into the trap of another mainstream sub-par video game.

Pros - A nice environment, nifty story, interesting gameplay mechanics, polished, crossbows and muskets are interesting feature.

Cons - Limited gameplay overall, no sandbox feel, no kind of character development, narrow path gameplay, way to scripted, swordplay is arcade, and just not as fun as its counterparts.… Expand

What is more to say... It's so boring and insulting, it's not even worth the download of the unofficial demo version. I feel very embarrassed I had it on my system. I have to perform a restoration now, for good measure. They lent something like $40,000 for the Unreal license to write it off against taxes. Same goes for Bethesda's marketing budged, making all the fake rating possible. You know what that means? Those ***** having a nice little party at your expense, whether you are so stupid to pay double for it or not - they couldn't care less.… Expand

I sadly thought this game was going to be unique and a major change in the industries but I was wrong. The trailers were misleading along with countless reviews. The game has many fine aspects and ideas but all are horribly used. At the beginning the game seems interesting and exciting, but shortly after it feels like you have done everything before and the missions get repetitive. It also feels as if a large part of the game was missing, content wise. Their were limited weapons and abilities. Also the stealth aspect was poorly done which lead to alot of problems and very many of the characters seemed uninteresting. The story was also quite short and very predictable after about the third mission. Also their was no real need for strategies, But when you used strategie it was time consuming and easily destroyed by countless bugs and a poorly made rating system called "The Chaos metre" which counted the times you were seen, the number killed or left unconscious was also poorly executed. Finally the graphics and the rendering system in place were absolute terrible, it's 2012, not 2008. Many times when rotating around I was met with quite a fair bit of lag on a machine meant to handle resource hogging games, but apparently the devs never got the memo on efficiently rendering and good graphics and little ol'e textures. In all honesty this game had some great ideas but failed to execute them properly and was followed by a dull story. I will give this game a 4 for the slight enjoyment I had. So all in all, rent the game… Expand

Short and one direction. There is no point in replay because some of the achievements are, "play without killing an enemy" Or "Dont get detected through the whole game". So what is the point of having a massive game about fighting and killing when you are punished for playing? Secondly Its repetitive as hell. Its pretty clear that the enemies feel copy paste from other games so once you find an easy way to kill say a tank, then you have no problem fighting it for the remainder of the game. The writers put in things for shock and awe that please casual gamers.… Expand

The different ways to complete the missions is quite good, and the world is pretty good but the massive downside is the AI is bad, and the stealth mechanics need alot of work, the problem is it just seems completly luck and not skill if someone sees you or not as sometimes you get seen walking up near them other times you can walk about 20 metres right in front of them and they don't see you.
Also playing it on PC can't help to say the graphics are poor, low res console textures, character models that makes Skyrim look good. The PC has been well optimised control wise, but massively let down in regards to graphical improvments.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I was not impressed. If you are going to emulate a game like Deus Ex or Thief, you have to be willing to put forth the time and money to make it high quality. The AI is bad, and the stealth mechanics needed a lot of work. Even on the hardest difficulty, stealth was just a game of luck. Sometimes, enemies would ignore you when you were in plain sight in a normal human beings field of view. Sometimes, enemies would literally notice you (and start talking to you) through multiple layers of walls.
The powers were completely shallow, with an extremely small amount of powers and an extremely small amount of upgrades for them. There were also like five times as many combat oriented powers as non-combat ones, which encouraged combat oriented play. But then, you get punished for being combat-oriented with a high-chaos ending. On top of that, some powers were insanely overpowered to the point where they made the game too easy, even on very hard. In Dishonored, you can blink all the way to your goal in like 30 seconds if you have a mind to. In Deus Ex, even if you activate the enhanced movespeed/jump height augmentation, it's going to take you a long time to find and reach your objective. Plus, you have to actually sacrifice bioenergy in Deus Ex to do what little you can with that augmentation, but in Dishonored you have infinite mana as long as you wait for it to regenerate. The story was also very shallow, as it seemed to be pretty much a direct copy of Deus Ex's storyline. But, in that same aspect, it seems like the storyline of Dishonored was finished before it even began. In Deus Ex, you learn that the Gray Death was man-made, you learn who made it, you learned there was a cure, you get betrayed by your faction, and old friends stay by your side instead of siding with the clear enemies. All of that happens in probably the first half of the game. In Dishonored, you learn the rat plague was man-made and all of your superiors betray you, and some people stay by your side, but that's the end of the game. You do all the same things as Deus Ex, but then it ends with you defeating your betrayers. It makes me feel as though there was much more planned for this game, but due to budget or time issues they were forced to cut it short. Actually, that applies to everything, not just the story. I feel as though this entire game was a half-finished game, and if they could have done more work on the game it could have truly been a game as powerful as Deus Ex.… Expand

I have NO idea where the great score from other users comes from.

The graphics look awful is like a step back to 2007. The beginning of the game is so bad i was actually trying to rush it and read a book at the same time. Way better games ot there and this is not worth your money.

Dishonored is one of the most overrated games of 2012. As is typical for Bethesda schlock, they delivered a game lacking in almost every single capacity and convinced the moronic masses to go with it.

Almost everything about this game is putrid. Graphically the technically, the game is a failure. It's about as visually stunning as UT2k4, with flat textures, a very noticeable lack of physics outside of ragdolls, and poor particle effects. There's absolutely nothing here exciting at all. This game would've looked dated four years ago, clay-looking faces and all. It in no way makes any attempt to stand out visually.

The plot and presentation is a total joke, and I want to punch whatever creative writing dropout thought up this plot and introduce him to something called 'flow'. You're introduced to a world you know nothing about, you're told to care about someone and in the first seven seconds of the game you're framed for their murder, thrown in prison, and then rescued. There's even a torture seen in between in which the bad guy takes time to EXPLAIN TO YOU that he framed you, in case you were too stupid to figure it out yourself. There's a bunch of other cliche BS that happens later on in the game, but it suffices to say that the plot will entertain nobody with a triple-digit IQ.

Then there's the gameplay. The gameplay tends to be pretty solid. When the stealth works, it works. You can sneak around and be a clever little a-hole in the vein of Thief. And the combat is great fun, about as solid-feeling as Dark Messiah. You have all kinds of tools and toys to use as well, combat stops to let you pick your next device, and when everything goes pear-shaped, it's a blast slicing-and-dicing enemies to bits (too bad Bethesda can't put a decent combat system in the Elder Scroll games...).

The problem is that it's way too easy to sneak around. You even have an ability to lets you teleport right up to someone's bum, completely eliminating the need to actually sneak over there. Barring that, you can just teleport to some pipes 90% of the time. There's not a single situation where you actually have to use any of the gadgets, heck, there's an achievement for completing the game without even getting any upgrades, *THAT'S HOW OPTIONAL CONFRONTATION IS*. Rather than make stealth extremely hard, but rewarding, thus trying to force the player's hand towards the easier lethal options... you can easily just teleport your way through almost every single level to complete safety.

The problem is that everything fun in this game isn't stealth. You have a crossbow, a pistol you can use to just blow people away, a rat swarm,a fus-ro-dah you can use to blow people apart, you have grenades, mantraps, and a great combat system, as well as all sorts of assassination moves.

If you don't use combat, you complete the game by giving people hugs and shooting them with sleep darts. That's it. 85% of the game content has nothing to do with stealth.

Let's make one thing clear - this is an assassination game, not Thief. The very first people you meet call you an assassin and talk about how people need to die to make the world better. You even get an artifact you can use on characters, and it tells you things like "If you don't kill this (random guard), he's going to go home and kill his family and then himself in a week".

Now, who can explain to me why an assassin game, which has all kinds of cool moves and detail put into killing people, gives me a loading screen hint that says "If you kill lots of people you'll get punished, there will be more rats, people will hate you, and you will get the evil ending". That's right boys and girls - the developers *KNEW* that their crappy morality system was so bad and ill-fitting in a game about killing that they couldn't even let players figure out the morality thing on their own that they had to SPELL IT OUT FOR YOU. "PLEASE DON'T KILL EVERYONE GUYS, EVEN THOUGH IT'S THE MOST FUN". I'm assuming this tip went in because playtesters universally were having so much fun killing people nobody even knew there was a good ending, and they hated the evil path (because it's so terrible).

So that right there is the worst part about the game. The game literally punishes you for not playing in the goody-two-shoes total pacifist **** method. Some guy plots to kill your girlfriend or whatever, then says "oh no please don't hurt me", but *I'M* the bad guy for remembering that this guy TORTURED my character and needs to pay?

Why not just change the game so that whenever you kill someone it says "Go stand in the corner and think about what you've done while we slowly reload your save". Why is there even kill / don't kill morality choices in a game full of swords and plague and death anyway?

So that's it. This game is a huge dumbed-down overhyped easy-to-market pile of garbage. Another turd from Bethesda.… Expand

This game was amusing, but not enjoyable. You can beat this game with only the cross bow, blink power, and sword. You gain those really early, leaving the player to teleport through a rundown world, sniping at close range (because there is no sniper weapon), as you march though a predictable plot.

Don't waste your money on this game. The gameplay gets repetitive really quick, there isn't much room for exploring, the storyline is criminally short, and the moral choice system is extremely flawed. There aren't enough powers and there is little variety when it comes to combat. Also, for a game that focuses so much on stealth, there are surprisingly few non-lethal ways to take down targets: just choking and sleep darts. It gets old. My biggest problem with the game is that the only way to get the good ending in the game is to hardly kill anyone... which is boring and restrictive. And speaking of endings, this game has one of the most anti-climactic endings I have ever played. Very disapointing. Dishonored is easily one of the most overrated games of the year. Skip it.… Expand

This game is bad. Really bad... gameplay is really boring after two first missions. I expected some good stealth mechanics, and great story. What i got.... is total opposite. All "stealth mechanic" is just using one power to teleport behind someone and kill/stun them (btw. slicing someones throat is fun - i agree. but if you want good ending you must stun everyone. no killing!). Don't buy this piece of ****… Expand

Overhyped and overrated, this game is not near as good as I expected. A number of issues include a weak story, repetitive gameplay, abysmal graphics, and rushed stages.

Well all I can say is try before you buy. Only got as far as the tutorial which was enough for me. The setting/art style and voice acting are odd. Alternative London with American accents but baddies sound British - getting rather tired of this. Anyway aesthetic grumbles aside, this game depends a lot on the gameplay which is rather poor (IMHO). I think the dev's should have looked a little harder at the Thief series for the stealth and Dark Messiah for the combat. Its 2012...why do I have to compare Dishonored to games which are so old and yet still do this so much better? Combat problems include = poor hit detection, limited fov (70-80 degrees - feels like your looking down a cardboard tube) and no weight to the weapons = floaty combat ( even Skyrim's combat is better for god sake!). Try it if you haven't played either Thief of Dark Messiah...but if you have I can't imagine it'll hold your interest for long. And Bathesda where are my legs? Where is my player shadow? Why am I still a floating camera with fists?… Expand

Disappointment is the word of the day. Afer 12 hours in I discovered that I hadn't done anything else, but the same all 12 hours. I had been looking so much forward to that game and I really tried to enjoy it and I just didn't.It's boring beyond Words, I don't even know how I managed through those 12 hours. I was so furious in my disappointment that I just quit the game and deleted the game to never come back. I really feel stupid spending 25 EU on this "masterpiece". I don't even know why I'm giving it 1 point, I would only recommend the game to people who got dementia, because they won't notice that you're doing the same.… Expand

As a dear friend said: "This is the Frankestein of the videgames, it takes parts of another games (The Thief, Deus Ex, Bioshock) and does not do a serious story like those". I say: Many game makers just wait for sale success instead quality success.

Concentration is all on creating a certain type of atmosphere and a 'cool' way of killing someone. Game play is completely forgotten and it soon gets very tedious which is quite a feat considering how short the game is!It makes me wonder whether the critics writing these reviews are spotty teenagers who frankly don't know what they are talking about.

Para ser un juego de Bethesda deja bastante que desear, sobre todo después de ver títulos como Fallout o Skyrim.

Un juego lineal a más no poder con un absurdo sistema de lucha.

Una trama que no engancha para nada.

Muy mal Bethesda, muy mal =(

Dishonored is a game that sets out to recreate the greatest parts of gaming history into one game, stealth game play from Thief, an art style that rivals bioshock, freedom of choice like deus ex and assassinations as creative and violent at assassins creed. Unfortunately from the minute the story starts to unfold the whole game unravels as they forgot the most important part of single player gaming (which all the above mentioned games have), story. The writers from Days of Our Lives or Bold and the Beautiful create a more believable storyline than what is in dishonored, this unfortunately makes every character you meet uneventful, every assassination a meh moment, and the twist in the storyline can be seen from the very start. The rats in the game actually have more personality than the main characters. Overall a very disappointing experience if you were expecting something as great as the above mentioned games. Do yourself a favour, and by the above mentioned games for the price it would cost you for dishonoured.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I spent $59.99 on a piece of sh-t game like this??????? Are you kidding me???? There isn't anything you can do except crawl around and pick up **** It's STUPID. There is no sneaking at all. No matter how careful you are you can't get around the city guard even if you're on the rooftops and they're on the ground three stories down, they still see you and bum rush you. BOOM! You're dead. The story is lame, the time line doesn't match reality and the controls are really clumsy as well as limited in function. The game penalizes you for killing guards and makes the game tougher with more guards and weepers, but there isn't anything you can do once you've been spotted except kill the guards or they will kill you. The only thing you can do is blink, blink, blink. But even then you get seen and when there is six or seven guards on you ( and by the way you can carry up to ten bullets and ten darts ) how can you possibly kill six or seven guards with ten bullets? The regeneration isn't fast enough to be a first person shooter and the sneak ability really sucks! This game is probably going to be deleted and I will have wasted $60.00 on it . That's a shame. I wish there was some other way of purchasing games on-line, without getting stuck with the garbage some of these studios pump out every year. I just can't believe that over a thousand people thought this game was good. What a joke. Just goes to show you how STUPID they are.… Expand

Huge disapointment for me. i didnt like the story, the gameplay is pretty boring i thought this game would be something special but nah.. its just a overhyped good advertised game i still think a lot of people will like it

This game is no where near a 91/100, Ill start with a positive. Your hand animations are great, well animated and makes you feel more immersed but you cant see your legs so that's all ruined. The graphics are outdated, this is a 2012 game and games over 5 years ago look much better, it's like an uglier TF2. The environment is the same old style of depressing concrete, random pipes and industrial themed, and of course a sewer level. There is garbage everywhere to make it look like the world has gone through a tragedy but its just another way developers can be lazy and put random crap everywhere instead of planning out the maps, it feels as if everything has just been placed randomly. The blink power ruins all the stealth because instead of sneaking you can just teleport everywhere, the "see through walls power" ruins the stealth because there is no challenge when you are aware of everyone's positioning and what direction they are looking, and no point of using keyholes to look through doors. The stop time power lets you skip content so they might as well put a button saying "skip to next level". You will be confused about whether someone on the street will be passive and leave you alone or start attacking you for no reason. The combat is very repetitive and will get boring, just left click to swing sword and right click to shoot or use some power and if you are feeling fancy then you can block by holding ctrl, you are discouraged from combat if you want a good ending anyway. You can quick save and load everywhere, so you don't feel in danger of being caught or getting killed. The AI doesn't respond as you would expect and kills any realism and immersion. The "story" is terrible because of how predictable and unoriginal it is, you feel no emotions towards any of the characters in the game because of how bland they are and the dreadful voice acting. Lastly you will get bored by the limited weapons and powers quickly. If you want a good stealth game go try batman arkham asylum/city because you won't find one here and don't be mislead by all the high rating reviews.… Expand

I can't see anything fascinating in this game, The story is probably the dumbest part, It's about a man repeating a cycle of betrayals, having a one huge journey full of obstacles and kills and assassinations just to put a 10 YO kid on the throne, clearly absurd, and don't tell me it's about a man trying to get his honor back, we never really understands how he got his absolution.. And the graphics clearly suck, not that they are cartoon-ish but clearly the level of details is low, And the game-play get quite boring after a while, I didn't enjoy this game at all.… Expand