So, has anyone here played Dishonored? If so, what did you think of it? Comments, reviews and general discussion is welcomed.

Personally, I really liked the game. I like the plot, and how in every mission you have the chance to go for a non-lethal route and play a truly good guy. It's not just a simple assassin game where you can go mowing down everyone you see if you feel like it; The actions you do and their follow-ups really have meaning in the world and the story via those multiple endings.

The setting, in my opinion, is also good. It's hard to create good a steampunk environment without breaking the suspension of disbelief, but they really pulled it off. The city is as much as gorgeous as it is gritty, but it saddens me that we can only see glimpses of it. I would've liked it even more if it would've been a sandbox containing the whole city.

The characters...I really don't know what to say. They're somewhere between "okay  good" spectrum depending on the character itself, but they are not great. They could've been worse, like absolutely bland, but they have different characteristics and personalities. But they didn't really speak to me, didn't draw me in and make me concerned whether they live or die during the course of the plot, save for Emily who is the best character without a question. I suppose they aren't as bad they could be, but I've seen a lot better characters from Bioware and Bethesda itself, and it made me a tad disappointed because I knew they could've done it better.

But the main thing that makes me frown is the duration of the game: It's way too short. I played it in 4 days, 4-5 hours at a time, and that makes the total hours somewhere between 16-20 hours. What I've understood, it isn't one of the shortest ones, but I've accustomed to more lengthy games that last from 24 hours onward like the Elder Scrolls games and such.

So I guess it's party due my own tastes that I feel this way, but it doesn't make me angry because I feel that I can blitz though it, no. I feel, that while in itself it is a good, coherent story, it would've offered so much more if they'd had 2-3 hours to develop the characters and the world. Now, the background information comes from scattered books that most people won't read. I read few of them myself, but the amount of text made my eyes strain. They'd need to show the world with conversations and missions instead of telling it.

Overall, I think it's a good game, but it could've been much, much more. If you like Bethesda and sneaker games such as Thief or Metal Gear Solid, I recommend it, but truth to be told, I wouldn't pay the top price for it, not if I had known what I know now. (I paid around 70 euros, a regular price for a new Xbox game around here. Had in been somewhere around 45-60 I would be more satisfied)

I really enjoyed dishonored because of the game play. I loved being able to stop time, even if it was a little short. I loved figuring out how to get past people or use the patterned routes they took to my advantage. I also loved that people didn't always do the same thing every time.

I also thought the characters were a little bland though. I really wanted much better facial expressions and voices. I thought that there were moments where every character had both, but it didn't feel consistent. I agree that more of the world could have been shown too. I loved reading the books, but I eventually got tired of them. 

The first time I played Dishonored I really loved the amount of freedom I had, but I also hated that there were certain limitations I didn't understand. Some roofs appeared to be places you could blink to, but when you tried you ended up falling to your death. You could only carry a max of 10 sleeping darts, but also carry 30 regular darts -it seems a little unfair to those who are trying stealth-. Or how I couldn't use a regular dart to blow up the whale oil tanks on the tallboys. And I also think there should have been an indication of when someone died. Maybe even explanations for how they died if you look into your journal or something. It upset me how in various missions I would kill people without even knowing it.

Overall though, the different ways I could play the game and change the city more than made up for the mistakes. In my second play though my jaw dropped at the difference in the city. Guards were missing to the point that I could walk pass areas I spend so long to sneak though. Rats were swarming much more, and so were weepers. I really want to see my dark ending because I loved the good one so much. I'll probably play it one or two more times after this. Once never seen, and once never killing anyone.

Gameplay wise, the game was really great and if you just scouted every corned of the level, you did get more powerful because that way you found bone charms, runes or secret passages.

Spoiler alert (especially high chaos ending)

But this is just gameplay, story and character wise it lacked a little bit to much.
I mean, you had the pub with all your friends, who were just boring and most of the times just had random citizen sentences which made me not care that they died in the end.

Also I hated the story, I mean, I am not good at this game (yes I admit) so every level I ended with a high chaos level, although I only killed a few men.
This way I get a crappy ending which didn't suit me and was just terrible.
I tried to be a good guy (only killing at the brink of death) and there were just a few weepers or groups of rats but still I got the crap ending because I suck.

a steampunk environment

I think you mean whalepunk.

I mean, you had the pub with all your friends, who were just boring and most of the times just had random citizen sentences which made me not care that they died in the end.

Did you try using the heart on them? It can really add a layer to the characters. You should always just randomly use the heart a couple times in every level, it's one of the best aspects of the game.

Did you try using the heart on them? It can really add a layer to the characters. You should always just randomly use the heart a couple times in every level, it's one of the best aspects of the game.

Yes that was fun until I encountered this on Lydia's wikia page.
Neither of the above dialogue by the heart is relevant to Lydia in particular. The heart plays generic dialogue lines specified to any Maid NPC when used on Lydia.
So knowing this it kind a ruined the fun for me.

Did you try using the heart on them? It can really add a layer to the characters. You should always just randomly use the heart a couple times in every level, it's one of the best aspects of the game.

I used the heart too, but it didn't really make that much of an impact on me. In my opinion, while funny and certainly unique, it still fell into the "show, not tell" category, at least in part when it came to the characters. With a random passerby or a guard, it was great, but when it came to the people in the Pub, I would've wanted a tad more than a handful of exposition lines. Like actual character development with missions and extra dialogue. Sure, the heart did add another layer and bumped them up another notch, but in my opinion, it wasn't very much. But I liked the concept of the heart, and ended using it on just about everyone who I could.

Played it for about 30 minutes @ my friend. I didn't really like it, but I guess it's just not my style.

Is the story good and relevant? I am planning on buying Dishonored because of the story and gameplay, but if the story is crap, I'm getting Assassin's Creed. Can anybody point me in the right direction?