Like its predecessor, one of the best in a stealth FPS. Even after ten years it is still a great game.
You are Garrett, a master thief who is known for his great skills at picking pockets, lock-picking, hiding, evading and dangerous for his surprise attacks. You spend great care not to be seen or heard and are patient to observe guard patterns and to listen for footsteps around corners. In the first level you avoid the light by dousing torches with the use of water arrows to help cast shadows across the corridor so that you may sneak about undetected, and this becomes a learned necessity in almost all levels. As in the first game, you are equipped with a sword, a bow and a blackjack (for knocking out the enemy especially needed in expert difficulty where you are not allowed to kill anyone), and as you complete additional levels, you have the chance to gain higher technological devices such as flash bombs, gas arrows, rope arrows and mines. You also learn that it's probably not a good idea to fight toe-to-toe with guards and is usually a best bet when surrounded to run into the shadows or to gain higher ground to lose your pursuers.
Through the first couple of levels, you can see that you are in a unique environment (for those who haven't played any of the other Thief games), a setting that has both a medieval and sci-fi look to the buildings, with castles and stone-walled fortresses surrounded by clock-like gears and electrical power sources, as well as the city occupants who wear armor and carry swords among security cameras and boiler robots. The story is shrouded between the worlds of nature versus the mechanical. For those who played the first game and defeated the Trickster and his strange monsters will now find themselves fighting against the cult of the Mechanists. The primary difference in this game is that you will be fighting/disabling/avoiding a lot more security devices and boiler robots and not as many of the undead that littered the first game. You are reluctant is some missions but because of the profit, you continue down a road that will soon partake of a prophecy that will save or destroy the city.
The one issue that anyone might find with this game is that the graphics will show its age, especially after ten years since its release, where faces and bodies have that polygonal look. Nevertheless, the maps, well-thought out story and the ability to sneak, back-stab, pick locks, pick pockets, set traps, climb and hide makes the game a worthy one to play. With fifteen missions, each with a different objective that changes based on difficulty (expert being the most difficult and with the most objectives), the game is very enjoyable and will bring a smile to those who love challenging levels with a great storyline.
Notable levels are First Bank and Trust (where you break into a highly guarded bank to rob an important document from the vault as well as some loot along the way), Life of the Party (where you sneak into the Mechanist's stronghold, Angelwatch, by travelling by rooftop) and Betrayal at Soulforge (the finale where you have to find a way to stop your archenemy Karras from carrying out his plans with many of his followers and machines standing in the way).
A great main character, a great villain, very cool level design with challenging objectives, pretty good graphics even by today's standards with a perfect ambiance to set the tone to a dark game makes Thief 2 worthy as one of the best.