First mission, and already it shows you that this ain't kids play no more! 3 ways to get in silently, ability to snipe the bastard from the beginning, "random routes" of guards and the target (they're scripted I think, but not nearly as strict as in Codename 47) to make the level interesting, frisk searches, hiding guns in the groceries to later pick them up from the kitchen, anaesthetic that lasts for a certain amount of time depending on the dose for minimum kill runs, nice graphics and animations, costumes not fooling the enemy up close anymore, the ability to take the car, side challenges of collecting all weapons for the shack back home, guards speak the right languages instead of having weird accents, rating system at the end, more cinematic gaming experience... Yeah, I guess the series did take a step forward. Four things I dislike, though: music during levels, inventory scrolling, costumes are useless if anyone sees you run and the rating system. The rating system, alright, perhaps it adds a measurable challenge so that people can feel proud of themselves seeing a perfect score, and I can easily just not try to reach the highest rank. I want to fiber wire and shoot guards, and judging by the response some of my 100% rating Splinter Cell videos got, many viewers want more action also, thus I wont specifically go for the SA rank if it's a bore. There's like 29 guides for Hitman 2 SA runs online, and there's 30 guides altogether. You don't need me for SA. The music is good, but I prefer the silence. Gets me into the game better, but I guess I could just turn the music off in the menu. Inventory takes you OUT of the game... bugs me slightly, but then again I guess I should just learn to press number keys for quick selection instead of entering the inventory. So no biggie. But, the running... I understand it's difficult to realistically simulate the challenge of acting inconspicuously even with all the things Hitman 2 has to make the game as lively as possible, but take it from me: cousing Jürgen does NOT shoot the boss' new bodyguard just because he saw the guy running to the toilet instead of crawling at snail's speed. What if the guy was Jürgen's distant cousin that started working for the family only yesterday because he has a cancer and has been in kemotherapy. He's lost his hair, he's new and he's late from work, and Jürgen just outright guns the poor bastard down. "But, sir, I saw him take a running step, there was at least 35cm distance between his feet!" "That's because he had a large Pepsi before the shift, you daft bastard!" So, if you don't know the game well, the reason why I'm so slow is that if they don't start firing when they see me run, they at least get suspicious and start following me everywhere. A bald postman creeping along a narrow ledge on the second floor is not suspicious, but a bald guard running across the yard is. It's not as bad in missions where the guards don't know each other I hear, but still...