After years of having this game in my library I finally decided to give it a try and it's ok at best. As others have pointed out the story is extremely similar to that of Dishonored 1. Pretty lazy imo and disappointing. The design of the world feels very dated despite this being a game from 2016, which is not that old. A great example of this is the old school linear game design. Yes you can take different routes but that's simply a matter of different pathing. It also makes it very obvious this is a game because they always provide the same options on each map, the level may change but the entire game follows the same repetitive underlying formula. The only form of world-building in this game is in the form of notes and for some reason the guards attack on sight in public spaces (no jail option either). The combat is horrible, complete jank. Enemies will often miss their attacks and hit you anyways. It reminds me of playing MMOs from the 90s over-dialup. In essence once they start a swing on you they will almost certainly hit you, regardless of whether their sword did or even could actually hit you. Dishonored 2 does give you tons of options during combat but that is not nearly enough to offset just how bad the system mechanically works. It's also pretty annoying when you are playing on the highest difficulty and you are killed by the NPC that's both staring and swinging at the wall. The stealth gameplay is pretty decent although nothing amazing. NPCs can detect you by seeing you and by noise. You can perform KOs or assassinations from behind or above. You can carry and hide bodies. That said there is a lack of containers to hide bodies (a common mechanic in newer games) and for there are a lot of items you cannot use to distract enemies. Some bottles you can throw while others are just static. It's extremely annoying that the game essentially wastes your time because the devs couldn't be bothered to make items that should be usable.
