Getting this thread back on track:
I'm still playing this. I definitely could have beaten it by now (things kinda became apparent on the correct order of things by the fourth loop or so) but I've gone over things a couple of times different ways to see any differences, and ended up following something for basically an entire loop that lead nowhere - grinding that autistic scouring of the map side content that I always find a way to with Arkane games. The game isn't unpleasant enough to play that I want to force myself to rush through it or anything. Single player is still easy and you basically have to play like an extremely retarded smoothbrain for any semblance of challenge to rear its head, even on Updaam Night after blowing Fristad Rock sky high the enemies weren't really a problem at all for me. I ended up aggroing every single enemy in Alexis' mansion (like 30 in total or something) and they just funnel into one doorway while you aim at head level lol.
As others mentioned previously any weapon that is silenced is overpowered as fuck versus the AI, you can casually just stroll through entire maps clicking heads and even the Silenced SMG has a moderate range, it doesn't feel like there's a reason to use the loud as fuck sniper rifles, shotguns or machineguns that alert everyone nearby when you can 1 bullet headshot every enemy except the Visionaries with the Silenced SMG. Even the Machete becomes obsolete versus the AI as soon as you have any Silenced weapon, you will never ever use the Machete again, at least shotguns and machineguns can get some use if you get lazy and bored and end up alerting half of the level. The Silenced Pistol is also great but... I don't see why you would use it over the Silenced SMG? The SMG holds more bullets and still one shots to the head, they are both totally silent and not able to be heard by enemies right beside you and they seem to have a very similar maximum range in my experience. Once you have the Silenced SMG and you've saved it to your inventory with residuum it will never leave your loadout.
Julianna encounters with online turned off are just more of that prime cut AI, the difference is so huge that I'm totally convinced that my previous statement about Arkane planning on having other players be the difficulty spike in their levels is absolutely true. Even if it wasn't a laggy garbage piece of shit where people just set up turrets, mines and blink at you with a machete for a free kill it would still be 10x harder than a normal encounter with the Julianna AI. I have continued playing as Julianna online while playing Colt offline and even though playing as Colt is braindead easy at times I do not regret turning the online off at all. As soon as someone who isn't a smoothbrain gets behind the controls of Julianna and knows how to play with their inherent defender's bias and actually take advantage of it while abusing all the power fantasy elements / one-hit machete lag warp it's a cakewalk, it is absolutely not balanced at all, or it was balanced but around playstation controller gamers who are basically as good as the bad AI.
While I play as Julianna I put myself in their shoes and just think about how fucking cancerous I am being to their progress, even if I get 2 kills instead of 3 that means if they slip up on the enemies or platforming over the ice (black man can't swim) afterwards they're getting looped. The amount of time it takes to progress as Julianna and get really good weapons is also way, way shorter than playing as Colt, and seeing as most Colts you will be invading are new players who haven't turned off the online yet you're just going to shitstomp them while they struggle with their grey SMG versus your full purple kit (doesn't seem like there is any matchmaking whatsoever to balance this stuff out, game is too starved for players to warrant matchmaking, queueing as Julianna can take like 10-15 minutes sometimes).
Comparing this pvp to Dark Souls is so fucking disingenuous it makes me want to cry. Dark Souls' combat is extremely slow compared to this. In Dark Souls you don't have to deal with people having Arkane power fantasy immersive sim magic powers teleporting beside you and getting a literal one shot machete on you, and you don't have to deal with the invader setting up a turret farm and abusing mines in a cluttered map where it's hard to see them like they're playing Technician in Tribes: Ascend or something. The only similarity is that you invade someone's single player game, the comparisons end there, it is absolutely surface level.
The gameplay is basically Dishonored but without non-lethal (and thus an enhanced focus on lethal) and with elements of Prey Mooncrash, which is fine. The power fantasy easy mode stuff as always with Arkane games outweighs the tension. If the game is on sale in the future I'd recommend it at maybe half price, knowing full well that the online will be dead by then because I cannot see the people playing as Colt just trying to progress not getting cancer playing vs a good Julianna. There is still plenty to see and do, it looks nice, sounds nice, the gunplay is actually quite good and punchy. The level design is pretty good, standard Arkane stuff at this point, though there is only four levels with different time of day permutations. I actually like the storytelling and the characters, it can be quite funny at times but there are definitely also some reddit humor rick and morty tier moments in there too.
I'm here to farm Informative ratings.