The new installment to the Hitman Franchise and the best yet.
The levels are much more open ended than the earlier ones, although the AI can be a bit strange, the guards and police CAN actually change their route from one game to the next but how often that happens I don't know. The levels are quite diverse too which just adds to the jet setting hitman lifestyle. One day you could be in an abandonded fair ground, tomorrow a quiet leafy suburb and the next at a Mardi Grass festival.
The weapons and equipment are only as usefull as your imagination to use them, although taking someone out with a sniper rifle is still fun, it's just not something that you should bring to every assignment. Indeed I reckon you could do most levels without bringing any of your own weapons, just using the basic equipment should get you through security and finding a quite spot where a guard or member of staff is smoking or sleeping through you'll be able to put him in a deep sleep, take his clothes and weapon hide the recumbant form and continue your business.
The graphics on this PC version aren't bad. They aren't photorealistic either, but they get the job done so it's not worth complaining about them.
The added Noteriety status seems quite mute when after completing a couple of levels you'll easily be able to pay off any of the three levels of bribery that you may or may not need. It seems like it was half implemented and at the last minute.
To Summarize.
If you've never played a hitman game before, the open ended nature of the levels could seem a bit too overbearing, but their is no doubt that this game has a lot more replay value than previous installments. Buy or Rent? That's down to personal tastes, if there was an included SDK it would be a categorical BUY, but as they are not going to release anything to aid the Mod and map makers even with the replayability the shelf life will be greatly reduced. It's still a great journey and a very good story.