Hello Codex, I normally stick to lurking, but I thought to toss my 2 cents into this.
Bull crap.
Maybe on easy difficulty or whatever you played on, but on the highest one (Silent Assassin?), you couldn't even stand next to guards otherwise they would see through your disguise. The game was maybe easy on the pre-set paths that lead to the best outcome but there were so many ways to approach this that still baffles me to this day and there were many harder options as well.
Sadly, Adon is right.
The game mechanics make it so that the notoriety system within the game has absolutely zero merit on anything. It's very difficult to actually have someone react to you, even if your notoriety is max. You are allowed to run circles around each and every guard and they won't do anything about it. Worse yet, you're allowed to even run into restricted areas with a long time to pull off the entire assignment because the guards' first reaction is to chase you around the map just to tell you "No visitors here" or my favourite "Proprieda privada, amigo".
Blood Money was a streamlined game. You could even say it was "casualized". It was one of the few cases where they made up for it with cool mechanics and the overall package was GOTYAY, but it's easily the easiest Hitman game, with the most lenient rating system and overall easy ways to erase any screw-ups. It's also the easiest game to play the Suit Only challenge in, though it's still a very feasible way to challenge yourself, short of the fabled Silenced Shotgun playthrough. Nevertheless, a terrific game.
If you experienced anything like the guards reacting to you standing next to them, then I'm sorry to say that you're not very good at Blood Money (or rather - you don't know its mechanics intricately, which is perfectly cool). Aside from area restrictions (like guest uniforms not allowing you into restricted areas etc.), disguises you pick up are insta-win. You can run places; in Hitman 2 and 3 (especially 2!), you sometimes had to stop running and mix some walking and sneaking into your pacing so that your disguise wouldn't be ruined (walking slower gave you more chance to pass a guard without him opening fire), and the worst situations were those where you had to walk past a patrolling guard - the suspicion marker flew off the handle and often just walking past someone was enough to get your cover blown. Made the experience really tense.
I really do feel that with the lenient guard AI and rating, Blood Money was an ultimate in sandbox experiences, while the previous games (maybe aside from the weird but still charming Codename 47) were more about the actual, traditional challenge.
Still, Absolution was a horrible piece of crap, and it wasn't even going in any right direction. The best disguise system in the series was decidedly in Hitman Contracts - even in spite of that game's massive design shortcuts (that result in some buggy shit happening - name me a Contracts level, and I will tell you that it has at least one bug that can potentially ruin your rating or render the level not completable). Disguises worked like they did in Hitman 2 - you had to use them carefully and wage your options, it wasn't wise to try and go through a narrow corridor next to patrolling guards, you had to be smart about it. However, on the other hand, Contracts toned down on the guards going full-on psycho when they spotted you doing anything remotely suspicious.
In Absolution, the way guards spot you is utterly nonsensical, and having to rely on some stupid mana system for walking past them instead of carefully pacing your way around them, approaching them from a wide angle, etc. like you would have had to do in H2/3 makes the whole experience immersion-breaking and really dumb. Also, the fact that the most optimal way to go anywhere was to remain crouched, and the characters only reacted with juvenile remarks ("IF YOU KEEP IT UP YOU MIGHT CATCH THE NEXT BUS!") when I'm doing something utterly nonsensical right in front of them, because ducking behind a table right in front of them is much less suspicious than casually walking away from them. Jesus.
Anyway, from the trailers, it doesn't seem like they actually have a whole lot of the game done, given they're planning to release it in December 8. The gameplay trailer is just a glorified movie reel. My worst gut feeling is that this game's "open world" nature will make it an Assassin's Creed-style bland hubworld. I'm skeptical. Not as repulsed as when seeing the new Fallout trailer, but I'm keeping my cool about this.
Sorry for rambling so much in a first post. Hi again, Codex.