For 60 bucks, the game is not worth it. I'd much rather tell a friend to buy the first or second splinter cell. Not this
Where to start......
Even at the lowest brightness settings, you can barely tell where good areas to hide are. And when you can tell, the area isn't at all pitch black like it used to be in the good old splinter cell 1 game but rather a lame shade of grey that is perfectly visible and lets you wonder how the AI can't see you there....
Not only does this take away from the whole feel of the game but the game lets you know you are hiding by simply turning the graphics to monochrome. This makes finding other hiding spots even worse! Where is the iconic night vision and thermal vision from the old games? Sonar vision is cool but I would of liked more options than just that.
Also, I wish they would just put a hud meter that moves up and down like they did in the first game, where the AI couldn't see you if it was all the way down and MIGHT see you if they got close enough and you were in a semi-dark area.
I also can't believe they pretty much turned this series into a run and gun kind of game. You pretty much can make headshots from anywhere around a corner with no effort at all and not even have to bother with the stealth approach. I wouldn't mind this so much since I can just knock them out with hand to hand combat but they even encourage shooting everyone with the new "quick takedown" ability that lets the computer aimbot a bunch of bad guys in the head for you (even behind cover apparently). Not to mention that pistol ammo is infinite for some obscure arcade reason and gadgets also restock automatically after each checkpoint.... "Look! Someone left a cache FULL of weapons in the sewers! How convenient!"
Also, the AI is about as smart as a pidgeon. It takes them 2-3 seconds to even notice you in plain sight, and once they do see you they will just crowd around your last known location/hiding spot and shoot at a wall.
They got rid of a lot of cool things Fisher used to do too. Like being able to position himself high in between two walls. Killing whoever walked underneath. Running while crouched has also been stripped away. Which is a feature that is really needed when youre trying to move from cover to cover quickly. You can't even pick up bodies anymore. Now, can you tell me how is this even a Splinter Cell game if you can't hide the person you've just killed? Whats the point of even trying to be stealthy if you can't do that? Someone is bound to come around and notice unless you kill him too.
The multiplayer is there but practically useless. I've spent hours "searching for a match" and just couldnt find any. I dont understand if Ubi expects you to just play a LAN match or what.
Don't get me wrong, the game is amazingly polished and has a nice story to continue the series but overall it just lacks the qualities of a good stealth game, especially one worthy of the Splinter Cell name. And for 60 bucks? You've got to be kidding me Ubisoft Montreal.