I love the first one and the third one and recently decided to complete the second one....man....where to begin. I will point out the things that really affected my enjoyment of the game.

-Several boring levels like the Storage (2nd level), Kidnap, and the last level etc.

-Overly complicated objectives (get this, go here, now do this in a said order)

-Lacks atmosphere.....failed to immerse me into the world like the first and the third thief did.

-Climbing mechanics are broken......which kills experimentation. In Thief 1 I found several paths through a level just by experimenting with climbable objects/walls. Once I became stuck in an area because your character would not grab the ledge of the box to get out.

-Unfinished levels (areas leading to areas with nothing in them).

-Recycled levels

This game just didn't click with me at all.

Yes, it was a slight disappointment, at least for someone like me who really enjoyed the more exotic levels of TDP, like Bonehoard and Lost City. The robots were more cute than frightening, and it was too easy to trick the largest ones to blow themselves up with their own grenades.
But it's still a brilliant game.

Ouch! I consider Thief 2 as one of the five greatest games ever, minus the fucking beacon level. I don't know if I ever would have gotten through that one without some walkthrough help.

Extra points go to the Truman Capote arch villain. As a lit major that was a very nice touch made more so by how risky it was. There are so many ways that could have gone horribly wrong but I loved it.

No, I completely understand. I played them in reverse order over the years, so it was awesome when I finally got around to playing Gold, at least ten years after playing Deadly Shadows, and the first line being "So I was a uhh kid." I loved Gold more than the other two.

I felt like Gold (or TDP) had the best atmosphere, character development, story, cutscenes, art, and levels. At the same time though it also did have some of the worst controls and levels. What I mean by that is I think Gold had some of the best stealth/infiltration levels of the whole series Lord Bafford's Manor, The Sword, Assassins, etc. But also had some of the worst levels monster levels in the series Cragscleft Prison, Haunted Cathedral, Strange Bedfellows. Overall it's a package with some very high extremes of perfect levels and out right horrible levels. While TMA has just all around alright levels, it's a pretty consistent package, with not many being bad but not many standing out.

I always found it hard to recommend a single entry in the series because every game in the trilogy has its good and bad.

This made me laugh. I at first despised it but I came to realize it was because the level is the 2nd (is the 2nd?) one in the game. I think zombies were a little much to hit you with right after the tutorial-esk 1st level; going from drunk guards to monsters that won't die is too much of a jump. Later on after I finished the game I went back and replayed it and had a blast but by that time I was expecting and ready for so much worse. The least they could have done was ease you into the undead, not just chuck them at you all at once.

I think the zombies and such in TDP helped the game. Many people hated those levels, but honestly, I think it helped a lot with the overall pacing of the game. You were always doing something slightly different and as a result very few things became tiresome. Where in Thief 2, there was some recycling of levels, and the pacing was a little off because of less diversity. I felt like I had to take a break from the game, where in TDP/Gold, i could not stop playing it, even the levels I was annoyed with. I think Deadly Shadows was good in that aspect, disregarding the other issues people have with it. The mix and mash of ghost, city, zombie, infiltration, hammer levels and pagan levels kept me on the edge of my seat.

On a more philosophical level, I think it is okay to 'hate' certain levels of games and aspects of games that are not inherently bad. TDP and zombies / supernatural reminded me much of Ocarina of Time and the Water Temple. It is a love / hate relationship, and that balance, that feeling of not wanting to be indiana jones-ish but still playing through it to overcome your obstacle, hating it but liking the outcome at the same time was missing in Thief 2.

I think I like them all quite equally for different reasons. Thief gold had a nice variety in levels but there were a few duff ones (The lost city I got REALLY lost in for a long time and the one with the four towers felt a bit long even if it was fun). Maybe a few too many monsters towards the end.

Thief 2 I can't fully comment yet since I think i've only gone half way but so far I really like the map design, they feel like REAL buildings and are put together in a logical way (mostly) therefore less getting lost. The firsts levels could sometimes get a little convoluted. The warehouse level felt like an actual warehouse and was fun to slowly unlock the storage units and clear them out. Unlike many people though i'm sad that so far I have only encountered one zombie.

Deadly shadows I think got a good mix of monster levels, faction levels and regular levels even if they were broken up into multiple zones. Also the story was great, but that may be because it was my first thief game and learning all the background stuff was cool. Also shalebridge cradle was awesome and caught me offguard. I'd heard for a long time that it was a really good level and its funny to me that a game that isn't a full horror game can be scarier than a lot of full time horror games. The mental patients or whatever they were had that twitch, you know the japanese horror twitch that I hate so much :P
And the "final stealth boss" was really fun and a bit different to the rest of the game.

No. I've only ever played T2 once to completion. I tried again a few years later but got bored on some silly submarine level or something. The levels were just so boring and constantly full of metal so you couldn't sneak.

Anyway I can remember so many levels from T1: Bafford's Manor, The Bonehoard, The Lost City, The Sword. Yet I can only remember one level from T2: Trail of Blood. As for the zombie thing, you must realise that this is a newbie thing: newbies just repeating what they've heard other newbies say. Repeating, not thinking. It may sound silly but it's one of the ways in which society is being brainwashed (the method in general ,not the game).

T3 on the other hand is a console-newbiefied abomination.

I agree that Thief2 wasn't as good as Thief Gold, I wasn't that disappointed though(not like with Thief3).

Unfortunately with Thief 2, it was rather rushed. At that time, Looking Glass Studios was having financial issues and had to get the game out as soon as possible. Because it was rushed, they were on the works of making a Thief 2 Gold like they did with Thief 1. Three more or so levels where going to be added, and some of the current levels were going to get an overhaul along with more creatures and voice overs etc.. When they where just starting to work on it, the plug got pulled on Looking Glass and the rest is history. I still like Thief 2 though.

In defense of Shipping And Receiving, IE that storage level.

As kid I hated that level, it was so much less classy than robbing a good old castle or an opera house, but I replayed Thief II recently and, Shipping And Receiving is easily one of the best Thief mission out there. It's the quintessential Thief mission, every elements that needs to be present in a good Thief game can be found in that mission:

The gameplay is entirely non linear, you can use the streets, the crates, the fire escapes, the sky windows, the stairs and the elevators to get around the buildings, it's a big huge sandbox for you to have fun with.

Although the mission is unrelated to the greater plot of the game, the conversations and letters you can spy on do a good job at setting the tone for the next missions.

Each and every single business you raid has a little story of its own, from the shipping company guy and his backstabbing associate, to the secret "ingredient" in the colonel's fried chicken recipe, to the art gallery guy who has a brothel in his attic...

It's that combo of non-linear gameplay and voyeurism, to spy on conversations and intrude into the lives of the people you rob, that made the old Thief games so awesome. And that particular mission has that in spades.

I think the main thing that disappointed me was the recycled levels, in terms of atmosphere, I encourage you to play it at night, or when it's raining outside, next to a window.

I don't know why, but that's my absolutely perfect way to play the Thief games, and 2's atmosphere was more just to steal stuff rather than supernatural, hocus-pocus scurry stuff.

But the recycled levels were probably because they were rushed to finish the game near the end(Looking Glass closed just a couple months after Thief's release)

It was indeed rushed at the end, they were in financial trouble, the game greatly went over budget (at a whooping 2.5 millions) and Eidos told them to ship on time or shut down. That being said, it was the financial mess that followed the forty millions dollars commercial failure that was Daikatana that led Eidos to close Looking Glass. If I recall correctly, when they were shut down, Looking Glass was working on both Thief III and a gold version for Thief II, it would have added four to six extra missions that were cut to meet the deadline in addition to numerous tweaks and fixes to the existing missions.

"Thief: The Dark Project"
The second game was just mis-titled:
"Thief 2: Robots"

The first game had a winding story arc that provided interesting levels. Everything fit that larger story, which is impressive and atmospheric for me. The game was cohesive, and I liked it even when dealing with giant insect creatures.

"Thief 2: Robots" really pained me to see "steam powered robots". When the game came out, those robots were too advanced for current technology.. let alone the fantasy setting. Just because you have metal, doesn't mean you have artificial intelligence (the small robots can't possibly fit a person, so how does it react to it's environment?).

I approach Thief in two different ways. I destroy all creatures, or I sneak through disturbing as little as possible. With robots invulnerable to melee combat (unless you count killing both you and the robot with a mine), robots have to be taken down by a surprise water arrow. In the original I got so good at melee I could take on multiple guards and defeat them with a sword. Impossible with robots.

Similarly, Thief 2 had lots of tile and metal flooring. I guess sneaking isn't being favored either! One early level forced me to get a certain number of knock outs, when my other preferred approach is to do no damage. I want to leave no trace if possible - but the second game had far more lighted, noisy areas than the first.

I've enjoyed some levels of Thief 2 (watching rooftop archers fight each other!), but overall it really let me down from Thief the Dark Project. Where the original contained varied levels connected by a twisting story, the second game seemed obsessed with robots.

Can't say I agree with this; the bots only appear in around half of the missions in the game and, apart from Soulforge and the Bank, there are only 2 or 3 of them in each level. If you're complaining that killing them with a sword is difficult, I have to wonder how you managed the zombies in Thief 1? :P Besides, Thief is a stealth game and being able to easily kill every enemy is kinda defeating the point- it's supposed to make you scared to fight them, so enemies like the bots are a good idea! You can still take them out but you have to be cleverer about it. I do agree that they don't really make sense in the setting though- it's steampunk fantasy with electricity, etc sure, but they're still a bit implausible (although there was a security camera in Cragscleft).

And yeah, it's a bit harder but I think it's quite a good idea to make the 2nd game harder than the first (assuming you've played Thief 1 before Thief 2) as players will be more experienced. The tile floors are just meant to make you use the moss arrows they give you, but it's by no means impossible to play the game sneakily (in fact it's far easier to sneak through this game than Thief 1).

I like both games equally really. I prefer the level design and atmosphere in Thief 1, but Thief 2 was SO much better as a stealth game and is nicely challenging. Also, Thief 2's story was far better than Thief 1's confused, disconnected and predictable plot.

It was quite easy to make the big robots blow themselves up by their own grenades, which was rather sad...