With almost no replay value, and trial-&-error gameplay, this game is a big letdown.
I can't say exactly what the biggest disappointment was about this game, maybe it was the fact that Ubisoft decided to have only a couple classic nighttime "Sam Fisher in his prime" missions, or maybe it was the fact that the 1st mission is the ONLY mission where you get to use all of your high-tech cool gadgets. I don't know why Ubisoft made this game the way they did. Maybe they were afraid of people getting bored with Sam Fisher so they decided to completely change the game. What's great about Sam Fisher is that he can sneak around and get the job done without being seen, that's what made the other games so fun. But in Double Agent the levels force you to use hand-to-hand combat, lots of guns, and being detected, because a lot of the missions are during the day. The game also likes to annoy you with a bunch of minigames such as putting nuclear bombs together for a bunch of TERRORISTS!.....this game severely tried my patients. Also, You will almost never use or need whatever cool moves or high-tech devises because this game can only be beaten by trial and error. Since the game designers keep shying away from stealth for some reason you will be fighting a lot, and THAT was a bad idea because the combat is terrible.
When Fisher has a gun out he automatically goes into "aim" mode. And when in "Aim" mode he moves at the speed of a turtle. So I found myself constantly putting the gun away for 2 seconds and then taking it out again just so I could shoot the next target before he filled me full of bullets.
Hand-to-hand combat is slightly more entertaining but still a big letdown. You have 2 buttons for hand-to-hand, 1 will knock out your opponent, the other will kill him. All you have to do is run up to someone and press either button. THIS makes the combat into a bunch of glorified quick-time events. BLAH! And so this tragic tale ends. I hope splinter cell Conviction is better, but from the previews it seems to be a modern version of Assassins Creed. Not that it's a bad thing to be like that…FOR AN ACTION GAME! And this makes me ask the question "Why do stealth series seem to have the need to randomly turn into action games?" I guess we can kiss goodbye the stealth based Sam Fisher, and welcome the new action series that Splinter Cell has become.