All a stealth game is cracked up to be, but doesn't exactly get everything right
The overall story is the standard counter-terrorism affair - terrorists threatening America, destroying various places; Sam Fisher comes to the rescue, finding contacts here and there; teamwork drama with sidekick; heroes gets put in danger, etc. etc. Nonetheless, while it's as generic as it gets, the storytelling nonetheless keeps you on your toes and the gameplay always draw you in.
The graphics were meant to be showcases for some Nvidia technologies and looks relatively pretty, but there's really nothing to write home about. The shadows look nice and that's about it, there's never a taxing moment on my GTX760 which is running on 1080p. Once in a while there's an explosion that probably was meant to make me go "whoa", but they tend to fall flat.
However, the game isn't without its problems, the most glaring of which is that if you're thinking of a non-lethal route, you'd only ever get to use the crossbow and hand-to-hand combat, rendering every other weapon and gadget pointless; it bemuses me that non-lethal rounds aren't available for the single-player campaign. This consequentially made non-lethal playthroughs feel tacked on and unimportant, even though the game rewards the player the most for it. While most of the game can be done through non-lethal methods, the game forces the player to kill at some points, but this occurs far less than in Conviction.
In terms of multiplayer, the game creates some very tense moments with Spies Vs. Mercs, but then the present author sucks at multiplayer, so the less is written the better.
In the end, the game is enjoyable. Blacklist was never going to be a stealth game masterpiece, but delivers an engaging and surprisingly rewarding experience.