Is that a mouse, or Sam Fisher
Truth be told, my first impression was not a good one. I really loved how Sam Fisher was voiced in Conviction, therefor I was extremely disappointed when I heard that it's no longer the same guy doing the voice acting. At first this was a minor turn off, but the deeper I got in the game, the more annoying it got.
I am not sure if it was the voice acting, or the general writing of the dialog, but Sam no longer felt like the old veteran who could fill an ocean with blood and secrets, he felt like just another soldier, almost no depth what so ever. This lack of depth also meant that I could not get emotionally invested, even though the game did offer some fan service/props for doing so.
Another problem I had with the game where the side missions(Coop/Single Player maps). I am a stealth man my self, so I did the side missions provided by Grim mostly, though they became tedious after a while dew to the lack of checkpoints in these missions.
Though these missions are not overly complicated, and I am sure that they would be made easier with multiplayer coop(I played single player), I force closed the game quite a few times, after failing the mission at the very last objective(after about 30-40 minutes game-play) and I was forced to start from the very beginning.
These objections not withstanding, this is quite a good game, finding the sweet spot between brute action, stealth, and story . Though I did find it frustrating while playing that some levels forced me to brake habit, placing me in a first person perspective, and making me go assault, something I rather dislike, I did come to appreciate said sequences for there value in story telling, trying to make the story a little less linear.
The stealth part of the game I feel is pretty strong, though some times the AI dose mess it up just a a little bit. One tinny issue, I have with it, is a cosmetic one. When you are in darkness, and therefor invisible to you enemy, the game lets you know by turning on shining green lights on your suit. One would assume that shining lights do nothing to help stealth, in fact they do quite a lot to counteract it. Once again this I feel is just a cosmetic issue, and in no way detracts from the experience.
The stealth and cover system do seem natural and smooth, and the game dose offer you just the right amount of mechanical support to pull things off how ever you wish.
The story is a very interesting thing to review in this game. One the hand there's the my perceived lack of a connection to the main character, on the other hand other parts of it are extremely well written and developed.
One grate fan service/prop they built in to the game is allowing Sam to talk to his daughter about how the events unfolding in the game effect her and the American public. These conversations make your mission seem all the more important.
The "bad guy" is extremely well written, and voiced in my opinion. Though his motivations remain unclear for most of the game, and he dose do some evil things, he is never shown as "the root of all evil", a man completely overwhelmed by his need to do evil, witch I find is grate, most games do depict there villains in this way, I think this makes the villain less believable, more cartoonish, there for to me, less fun.
The one problem I do have in this department is that the story almost competently lacks any decisions. The few they do offer you are in the end of no consequence what so ever.
To finish it up, I would say that Blacklist did live up to my expectations as they where formed by Conviction, and I am sure that as I replayed Conviction many times, I will also replay this game time and time again.