I will warn you that I never played any of the old Thief titles so my opinion is from a "new series" point of view.Games good. IF your into that style of games (Stealth). Not sure if you played any of the old ones but it was considered one of the games that created that style of game play back in the day tied into stealth.Its not the same as dishonored, but they are completely different. Dishonored even on hardest setting was easy. Here, they emphasis stealth. Higher levels hard modes the ability to kill and move list drops further and further or not allowed. Example, Knockouts allowed but no kills. Not be seen, but kills allowed etc..There is no free movement by the way (GTA V style) and exploring is pretty much centered on picking gold, items and loot from people or in closets, safes etc. 1 section may have doors to pick or windows to break in. The game is divided into sections, for example town A, B and C each require a load like old school games. Some may be thrown off by this because loads are pretty long. (not bad, just noticeable) Stages are decently huge. But what makes them feel long is the stealth tied to the game. You cant just free run everything. The guards are murder bots basically. The moment they hear or see you instantly turn murderous and track you.You can run and hide till they lose interest but the pattern on how they walk changes afterwards. Some stages have regular people walking by, who you can steal from behind. Its a quick time event.. But if they notice you and yell robber. (alerting the guards and you get the idea). In terms of openness: they do allow you to climb over crates, up walls if it has the correct marking for wall run and over ledges as long as it looks like it supports a real human could use. (everything). If you see a few crates that a normal human could crawl up on , you probably can too and not limited to the blue scratches on walls. This also extends to rooftops.You can also do typical things like pick up glass and throw it to make a noise and alert others to that area to change the pattern or let you creep behind them. For example, I had to steal a mask. First time I did this was waiting for the guards to change patrols, as they walked to the left and right side, I went in and picked the lock (quickly) getting in. They have a lock pick ability, than you hit a button to lock it and move to the next set of springs to open the door. A misses lock pic will make a sound. The 2nd time I just alerted the guys to all go in one side to get in, 3rd time I noticed the back room was open and snuck in the back-way. I have also heard there was a wall opening too. Being inside a house with people, can last about 30 minutes with no load. Mostly because they are walking back and forth OR sitting and you cant just walk around making noise. There is a "light" meter that shows your level of invisibility to someones eye. Pure black 100% hidden. You can walk slowly and not be seen. In a room that I blew out all 6 candles. The guy didn't notice me so he walked back and forth making something with only his candle on two desks lit. (I robbed him from behind twice and stole things around him. Than ran off.) In another save, I alerted him that he knew someone was inside but all candles were off. While he walked back and forth in the room trying to find you. Even than, you are so hidden that you could steal a purse from his back two times in pure darkness as long as he doesn't face you, you are hidden. If the light meter reads "dark" you are practically 100% hidden especially with crouch.You also have to be aware of how much noise you make too.Story so far is typical but matches with the settings. Since I am in master mode,its slightly harder. Every difficulty has set rules and one that uses a custom hard setting. You basically pick locks, various safe boxes and that type of stuff like gold from the ground or peoples hidden money. You also have to be rapid and careful because you can trigger warnings. The reason I mentioned dishonored, is because some have said its more fun. Dishonored was based off Thief,(I have heard) but had other elements and was easy. But like I said everyone has an opinion. Thief has a higher difficulty curve even on easy. I am familiar with how Thief plays.. Obviously graphics are good in 1080p. (PS4 at least) Everything you have to buy upgrades like you focus ability, sweep, and in general these things called poppy seeds that enhance vision, see items on the ground from far away etc. Its very slowly pace and careful. No run and gun sections type of things.. At the most run and hide. You can upgrade things like dexterity which allows you to steal two purses from one target in one hit making the quick time event faster. Quicker lock picking ability that lets you imagine the ability to see the locks from the inside to help you unlock them vs using the analog pattern to light up. There are also upgrades to let you walk in areas making less noise or hidden longer etc.You have an ability called sweep, which is the same as a shadow moving across the floor in a sweep formation. Sweep, is similar to Blink in Dishonored. You also have water arrow, fire and rope. (random other stuff) Rope can only be used on specific areas. Water turns off a hanging torch or anything with fire as long as the guards not holding it to allow you to creep by a lit area. You also have side missions aside from the main one. About the sweep ability: if you need to dash from one lit area to another. Sweep makes you a quick shadow blur. You can also sweep in shadows or ducking which gives the look like your materializing forward or backwards. From a first persons perspective, its a duck and dash just quick like a blur. I was able to shadow dash backwards while looking at a cop walking towards me (I was hunched over by a crate). This allowed me to avoid getting up, turn, than run and hide. You also have a watch ability. Basically stare threw his eyes and just watch conversations and walking pattern.Audios good too. Occasionally, the audio seems louder when people are talking. (Hard to tell which room or direction they are in). I am only on stage 4 or 5 as of yesterday. I switched to harder settings to master mode because I wanted more of a challenge from my first play threw. In my opinion it needs to be played harder to get a good feel on people being careful. If a stealth game is to easy, it wont feel like a challenge or like your a real Thief. Easier settings guys don't detect things like voice or walking on glass etc That makes it to easy. Since the stages are semi short divided by sections.. The harder it is, the better and longer the stages feel since you have to be ultra careful. You can pick pocket anyone as long as they have a purse on their side or back. This includes guards. Some stages that require you to be fully 100% undetected while breaking in, if they see you the game re-loads. So far for the most part of the game its not required. (basically, giving you a chance to get in and out but also make mistakes and allows you to run and hide and try again).However it will be awhile to get use to the stuff and you will have to start over a lot till you get the hang of it. Since they have to load the stage again, some might get annoyed by it. BUT when your use to the moves and things he can do to play stealthy. You rarely see a load. They also do a good job on the story by reading threw news paper, load screens or items you pick up like special things stolen. Take a chance on it. I don't really like reading game reviews because many of the guys are so critical that any little thing drops the score and it effects sales of the game or bad word of mouth. People have a tendency to just rules games out for another guys opinion or people rating them nit pick. I personally have played a lot of games that scored lower and they were extremely fun and I enjoyed them.