On my opinion, saying Dishonored is a Deus Ex like game is wrong and don't invalidate the criticisms towards the mechanics either. Deus Ex is a first person RPG with shooting and stealth elements, there is zero of RPG on Dishonored, even Deus Ex Human Revolution had more RPG elements than Dishonored did so this is wrong, a game isn't a Deus Ex like game because it offer stealth and combat options, by this logic, Splinter Cell Conviction or Blacklist or any Assassin Creed would be a Deus Ex like game. If this were claimed about Prey, it would make more sense but it doesn't make sense on Dishonored.
Even if that was true, what it isn't, and Dishonored was a Deus Ex like game this doesn't automatic means it is a good Deus Ex game. Sure, on Dishonored you have combat or stealth but the combat on Dishonored 1 and 2 are a joke, you can end a level on 10 min by murdering all guards with the least amount of effort, sure, you can extract some fun out of that by trying some crazy contrived stunts but one hour later of that, you would be tired, the game fails completely at keeping pace with the players power and has zero learning or challenge curve.
I was playing on the highest combat difficulty and made an experiment, decided to provoke 10 guards and ran inside of a building looking through the window, the ten guards outside just kept hurling rocks at me while I laughed and kept drinking the healing elixir, they couldn't enter on the building, their AI pathfinding didn't know how to navigate the building to reach me. I could kill most of the guards on that level, they were there bellow throwing rocks at me, with a single incendiary arrow. Sure, a combat option available doesn't mean it is a remotely fun option available taking in consideration that any Deus Ex game would give you a far higher amount of options in terms of guns. You don't even have an inventory on Dishonored.
Do guards on Dishonored throw back grenades at you? No. Do guards at Dishonored throw any grenade with frequency at you? No. The Ai of any Call of Duty game is able to do that.
Are guards aware of environmental hazards like mines? No, got tired of exterminating those super robots placing arc mines right in front of them and waiting for them to just step over. Not only robots, guards too. Two arc mines can disable six guards or destroy three robots, with the really low density of guards on most levels, this means you can exterminate the opposition with two arc mines.
Dishonored allow you far away perfect silent sniping with perfect precision when most enemies can't even retaliate from afar. Even if they get aware someone is shooting at them, they don't know how to use cover and because their pathfinding sucks, they won't be able to flank you.
You can keep blocking sword blows from enemies without running out of stamina, worse, when you manage a perfect parry, that is extremely easy to do, you can chain kill enemies at close like on any Assassin Creed game.
You fucking have a one shot pistol at close range when most enemies use swords and prefer to just dance in front of you instead of charging the fuck out of you, even on fucking Skyrim there are enemies that charge at you for massive damage. Because enemies don't charge at you to keep you out of balance and just like to keep dancing in front of you, it is extremely easy to line pistol shots at them.
You can carry tons of lethal arrows and bullets, and again, because of the low density of enemies, you will run out of enemies to shoot far before using all of this.
You have incendiary arrows that are cheap to buy and can kill four or more guards on a single blast, it is like you
You have multiple powers that would be cheat codes on any decent FPS on top of an already piss easy game.
I could go on and on why the combat on Dishonored SUCKS even compared with any popamole game in the market. To anyone trying to justify the shitty stealth mechanics because Dishonored offer incredibly shitty combat, please, this is akin of trying to say to a man to choose between prostate cancer or AIDS and that AIDS is okay because prostate cancer exist. It doesn't make any sense.
I would say that In terms of stealth, things even are a little better as enemies are much better at noticing and searching for you than they are at fighting you, their line of sight system, however... sorry Arkane, a shadow system is better all the way. On the lower levels of difficulty, enemies are dumb idiots and on the higher levels of difficulty, enemies will see you through foggy glass doors from the other side of the map and go from relaxed to full alert on less than two seconds and many times you will have to go through dangerous blind spots that can mean an unavoidable detection too.
On Thief, if a guard seen you from the other side of the room, he would try to investigate and move to your position slowly first, meaning things weren't this binary of suspicion to full alarm before the player could react. If a guard seen you on Thief, there was a high chance of you dying while on Dishonored there is a high chance of all enemies of the level charging at you and you chain kill them all one by one with your infinite stamina sword with insta kill counterattacks and one shot pistol that is more powerful than a shotgun while your enemies fight with sticks.
However, the lack of footstep sounds means it is so easy to get behind of guards and KO them , that this super awareness problem on the higher diffitulties don't matter as you can clean a whole level of guards with ease just choking them.
Dishonored 1 and 2 have an incredibly shitty combat and a barebones stealth system, I don't see why one being bad is made better by the other existing. Sure, people could claim those criticisms of shitty combat and so so stealth could be leveled at games like Deus Ex or Bloodlines too and they are right but Bloodlines and Deus Ex were RPG games and the RPG elements compensated for the weakness of the individual elements, not so much on Dishonored 1 and 2. They were more complex than Dishonored too in terms of mechanics.
I can only enjoy Dishonored ghosting as I would on an stealth game because, honestly, the combat sucks so much that is almost as good as if not being there and I felt punished by how unsatisfying it was every time I tried to fight an enemy, the enemies were so hopeless at offering a challenge that the whole thing felt unsatisfying. Only the level design and the art direction that are truly great save both games and I enjoy them for that knowing well they are really barebones and have some highly questionable mechanics.
Guess Arkane is talking of his exposition dumping as his biggest sin, that is indeed a big sin that deserve capital punishment.
