Originally Posted by holeraw
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I understand I'm probably repeating complains that people had back then too, and that many issues were dealt with on the sequel, but not enjoying this one enough doesn't make me want to try the sequel.

So the sequels make the necessary changes that you desire…and you won't play them because of issues in the first game - issues that were addressed? That line of thinking really doesn't make much sense . Reading your largest complaint - that the player can get by through the usage of combat instead of pure stealth, where the player is "punished" if they are detected by making combat really risky - I strongly recommend the sequels. I haven't played Thief 2 in ages, but I played Deadly Shadows within the past few years and unless I was doing something wrong after being detected, direct combat was not a good idea. It seems to have been designed in a manner where if the player is engaging more than 1 opponent at a time, they will lose - and even single combat is very risky.