Even though I've been posting fairly frequently in this thread and spamming it with my relentless fanboying, I think I'll post a short review of this game now that all of it is out. There are some missions I haven't played and some I've only played once or twice, but I've got a good impression of what works, what doesn't and how all of it comes together as a whole. So here goes:
Hitman 2016 consists of 6 large missions and several smaller ones, amounting to 10 missions in total (11 with the upcoming bonus mission). Considering this game costs 50 eurofagbucks, you don't get a whole lot of content for the amount of money you pay. In that sense, Hitman isn't any different from any other modern AAA game. Gone are the days where you got a 50 hour game for a 50 dollar price tag. You can probably go through this game in six or seven hours if you're determined to do so. However, my Steam account actually says I've managed to put 77 hours into Hitman, which should tell you a tremendous amount about the replay value. Bear in mind that I'm an irredeemable Hitmanfag and thus have been playing this way beyond what is even reasonable. A less enthusiastic player will probably get 25-35 hours out of this before growing tired, which is decent enough.
But how is the game itself? In my opinion it's mostly a return to form after Absolution (which I thought was okay, it just wasn't really a Hitman experience). The 6 proper missions range from decent to great and the best of them rank among the best in the entire series. Hitman 2016 is in many ways the updated Blood Money
fans have wanted since, well, Blood Money. The open ended levels are back and the cinematic and railroaded nature of Absolution has been scrapped. The game is now, once again, about dropping the player in a large environment where the he can do what he wants to get to his targets. This has been made considerably easier due to all of the 'modern' additions such as x-ray vision, quest markers, 'guided assassinations' (the opportunity system) and a mini map that shows everything, but all of this can - and should - be turned off right away, as the game is perfectly playable - and indeed much better and challenging - without it. In a way you can compare these features to difficulty levels, where leaving all the help on is akin to playing on easy. And as we all know, no one plays Hitman on the easiest difficulty.
Like I said, the levels range from decent to good. The game is definitely front loaded in that the three first levels are also the strongest. They're followed by two average ones and then a pretty good one. For someone buying the levels episodically the latter half of the season has definitely felt underwhelming - levels tend to feel slightly more cramped and linear towards the end -, but if you play Hitman in one sitting you might not notice the decline in quality to the same degree. The first three levels - Paris, Sapienza and Marrakesh - have tremendous detail and openness. They're all lively, huge urban areas with large crowds, beautiful visuals and more ways to complete them than you can count. Sapienza in particular is a highlight. It's a small coastal Italian area with a heavily guarded mansion in the middle of it that you have to infiltrate in order to kill two targets. The mansion itself is big enough to be a level in itself, but the developers added a whole entire town around it that has all sorts of things going on you can use in your pursuits. There are church towers you can snipe from, nooks and crannies where you can pick up important clues and disguises unavailable anywhere else and even ways to lure your targets out of the secure mansion and into the streets where you can then strike. The ways into the mansion itself are also numerous. Climb the walls, disguise yourself as the flower delivery guy, infiltrate from the sewers, pretend to be a psychiatrist who's there for a special appointment with the eccentric owner, 'join' the kitchen staff and cook up a special deadly meal for your target. Or just shoot the bastards guarding the front entrance. Although be wary that you die really easily in this game. 6 or 7 shots will drop you, which in my opinion is how it should be.
Paris and Marrakesh offer a similar amount of options, although they're slightly less impressive. Paris is smaller than Sapienza and 'only' consists of an art gallery turned into a fashion show as well as the surrounding grounds - it feels very similar to the opera level in Blood Money, if you want a comparison - and the interior is kind of boxy and squarelike, which kind of gives it a 'gamey' feel that isn't entirely welcome. Marrakesh suffers from the problem that the two targets are holed up inside an embassy and a school respectively, which means the entire marketplace in the middle that makes up the bulk of the level is kind of underused, though by no means pointless, as you can still find clues and disguises there. As such, these two levels could have been better, but they're still so good you will definitely want to replay them over and over in order to discover all the ways you can complete them. They offer as many creative kill opportunities as Sapienza and in my opinion they're up there with Hitman classics such as A New Life, even if they're not perfect.
And then there are the remaing three levels. One - Bangkok - is another hotel/box like level like Paris, but simply smaller and more linear. Not really bad, but simply underwhelming due to the very high standard the prior levels set. Then there's the Colorado level that takes place in a rural military camp, which to me just isn't a very interesting setting. It also suffers from a rare moment of railroading because the devs - in a rare moment of Absolution-ism - added a cutscene at the end, which means you're forced to exit the level the same way each time. And last there's Hokkaido, a level very similar to Flatline in Blood Money. It's set in a private clinic in the mountains of Japan where rich people go to get organ transplants and other operations. It's kind of like a luxury resort that has spa areas, restaurants, a morgue, a large hill you can use as a sniper spot and a restriced hospital area. It tries to switch things up by introducing a new key system (locked doors recognize your disguise, which means you're constantly forced to change disguises to get into various different areas) and taking away your items, which adds a bit of a challenge. It's a step up from the two preceeding levels, but still not as good as the first three.
I have to talk about two minor flaws I have with this game, even though I feel it's very good. These are the missing gameplay features and the music. The gameplay is somewhat stripped down compared to Blood Money due to the fact they've gotten rid of notoriety, the money and upgrades system, human shields, peeking through keyholes, dual silverballers and rifle suitcases. Some of these aren't necessarily things I sorely miss. Notoriety, for instance, was never that developed in Blood Money and was mostly a gimmick. But no dual silverballers? That's just wierd. So is the missing rifle cases, as they were essential for transporting your sniper rifle around. I also would have liked it if you could still peek through key holes, as this sort of thing is very useful when you disable the mini map. I guess they didn't include this feature precisely because you do have one this time around and also because of the shitty x-ray vision, but they should've had the hardcore fan base in mind here, as those will definitely not embrace such popamole nonsense. This is one area where playing Hitman 2016 in the correct way with all help disabled is a disadvantage, and I hope they will fix it.
OTOH, you now have the ability to unlock new starting positions and hidden stashes for each level. The more you complete a level, the more places you can choose to store a hidden weapon within that level and choose where you get to start it. This is a fun addition that greatly improves replay value.
Then there's the music. One of the main draws of Hitman used to be Jesper Kyd's excellent scores. They're still gone, replaced with a generic James Bond like spy theme is the same for each level (Hokkaido excepted) and is just sort of boring and non intrusive. This 'score' - if you can call boring ambient music a score - doesn't make your ears bleed, but it adds absolutely nothing to the game either. Please bring back Kyd. He's as much a part of Hitman as tattooed bar codes, silverballers and black suits. This series is not the same without him.
To summarize, this game is definitely worth your money, even if I sound like I'm criticizing it a fair deal. It has flaws - a slight decline in level quality as the game progresses, boring music, a lack of features that ought to just be there from the get go and obviously the stupid 'always online' dumbfuckery that understandably keeps many people from even giving it a go - but in most ways it's exactly what Hitman fans wanted, but thought they would never get after Absolution. I commend IO for actually listening to the criticism aimed at them and providing us with a proper Hitman experience that we can sink our time into. Here's hoping season 2 will be even better.