The art style caught me off-guard at first -- in avoiding recent media to keep things fresh, I think I forgot what it looked like. The textures are that sort of hand-painted pastel reminiscent of Team Fortress 2, which does a decent job hiding the fact that they're mostly pretty low-detail. Right away, I disabled most of the UI helper elements because I wanted an experience more like Morrowind, not Oblivion. You can tell the ability to do so wasn't just to placate we more dedicated gamer folk; they put so much detail into the level design that you can actually read street signs, etc. to find your way around in the absence of magic floating objective markers.

After the linear introductory segments, the first proper mission is where the game completely opens up. It's not an open-world, per se, but like Deus Ex, you have multiple, very large explorable areas that contain hidden collectibles to power up with, as well as optional side quests. The main "zone" is actually a sort of neutral ground, where enemies won't just attack you on sight. Gang members and guards alike will tell you to keep your distance, or maybe even give you a shove if you get too close. At which point they may or may not get a blade in their throat...

Yes, I couldn't resist the bloodshed. I try to be sneaky, because they've made ample provisions for that route of play and it's generally more efficient and interesting that way ("Hmm, there's a group of bad guys in my way down there... Do I drop down and sword-fight with them or figure out how to let the herd of rabid rats out of that closet for a distraction?"), but I'm not avoiding combat by any means. I'll do lethal takedowns wherever I need to, and sometimes I get into brawls because I screwed up my stealth and was detected. Aside from genuinely having gotten out of the habit of quick-saving and -loading in games lately, I don't want to be lame and try over and over again to get something perfect.

Another aspect of taking your time and really immersing yourself in this very well thought out world is reading/listening up on all the lore around you. Books and notes and journals and even voice recordings are scattered all over the place, fleshing out an industrial renaissance culture where the main source of food and energy is whales, a fanatical religious sect struggles to keep the influence of a mysterious Outsider at bay, and of course the tyrannical government tries to save itself from the horrific plague afflicting its citizens. Apparently, things will only get much worse as I sew Chaos throughout... And I can't wait to see it.