If Hitman: Absolution is on your Holiday list, you may be in for a big disappointment.
The Christmas 2012 issue of PC Gamer contains a review by Tom Francis who did a number on Hitman: Absolution with some very unflattering things to say about it. The fact that the review's sub-header reads "Hitman: Absolution is a mess. The police do not expect Blood Money is involved" should say everything.
IO Interactive and Square Enix may have very little to be proud of as every portion of the game is said to be bad. The review pans the game for its art style and overuse of bloom, poor story, small levels, pointless objectives (e.g. open a door), no saves, bad AI.
The review also points out that the game actively encourages you to kill guards and sentries unlike previous Hitman games, which emphasized stealth over all else. Not that it matters—as many of the assassinations you perform are pre-determined cutscenes in which Agent 47 fails to kill his target, rendering all of your work pointless.
Finally, the review notes that the PC port of the game was done so poorly that the game even tells you to "gently" press your mouse button, as if it were the same as an X360 controller. In addition, the performance of the game was sub-par on PC Gamer's machines, running at a sluggish 15~ FPS.
For all their efforts, the game receives a score of 62 out of 100 with a verdict that reads "A passable stealth game, but one that betrays almost everything that, until now, has made Hitman great."
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