There are a few versions of the game (same name but different levels and gameplay) which is a weird choice, but one was for the current gen (Xbox 360 etc) and the other was for previous gen (Xbox), then mobile.
The story gets off to a strange start and really needed fleshing out more. In the first mission, Sam has a partner in the mission, but he quickly runs off ahead and is captured and killed within minutes; so seems a pointless idea. On the flight back, after Sam completes the mission himself, Lambert drops the news that Sam’s daughter is dead which is a weird and jarring transition since it just comes out of nowhere. Then this somehow influences Sam to agree to be a double agent, starting in prison, and will need to participate in a breakout to get into a gang called JBL. One reason why Sarah’s death is a bizarre story choice is that her relationship has never been fleshed out, and only mentioned in passing; so the news doesn't really hit the player hard, other than knowing it's his daughter. The thing is, she is never mentioned again in the story, so it’s not like you see it impact Sam’s character.
The previous game, Chaos Theory seemed to perfect the vision of the series. With Double Agent, they have tried to reinvent the series but doesn't really improve it at all. It has aspects of Splinter Cell, but then some major changes, with more influence of generic action games. A large part of the gameplay is to stay behind cover, and med-packs have been removed in favour of regenerating health.
The barebones tutorial doesn’t give you much insight to what to expect. This is themed like a VR training module, featuring white walls. When you actually play the game, you realise you don't know how to do a lot of things, although most things make sense for existing players of the series.
One of the main changes is that the UI is quite limited, and they have got rid of the light and sound meters which was your main visual to help you with stealth. You now have a simple warning light which vaguely shows the threat level. Most of the missions are set in the daytime, and rely on cover-to-cover movement, rather than the “make your own darkness” gameplay in other games. So the main aspect that has made the series iconic has been removed.
The night vision goggles are still available in most missions but the initial one you have is very green and the filter is like a CRT scan line which makes it very difficult to see. Many of the darker areas are really hard to see so I ended up increasing the brightness and not using the goggles.
In Chaos Theory, the guards seemed pretty blind on the default difficulty but here they are blind in light areas. In some missions they can seem more alert but there’s many moments where it looks ridiculous.
The main idea of being a double agent is that you are trying to please the JBL gang and the NSA. There are many optional objectives, or binary choices which increase/decrease your favour. There are a few shocking scenes where you have to make the decision to kill an innocent. I didn’t have any problems maintaining both opinions across the game. Some of the optional objectives unlock new equipment for future missions but they aren’t required.
There are a few times where you spend time in the JBL base. This is timeboxed and you have a main task to do for JBL (training, manufacturing mines, decryption) but then will wander off to do missions for the NSA. So you use spy gadgets to gain voice samples and retina data to go through the high security doors in the hideout.
The basic lockpicking mini-game is still here. Hacking is tweaked but similar to Chaos Theory. You scroll through some numbers until they lock in place then select them, and need to find the number in each of the 4 columns.
There is a glass cutter in one optional location which seems a weird inclusion if they weren’t really gonna use it. One useful gadget is the Sonic Emitter which makes a sound remotely. There are still items like bottles that you can throw but there is no need with this gadget available.
In Chaos Theory, Sam had some humorous lines when grabbing enemies from behind and interrogating them. I think there were only a few times I noticed this, but I did try and bypass the guards or just directly knock them out, so maybe I missed out on some dialogue.
Sam has a different costume for each level, so is in white in the snow covered mission. This makes a change for his usual black attire. One level has you swimming in small sections. You can burst through the ice for some takedowns.
Part of the action influence is shown by dramatic sections like rappelling down a skyscraper. In another mission, there is a room with timed lasers high up with conveniently placed pipes to navigate through them. These seem like a gamey way of making a Mission Impossible-style set-piece.
The graphics looked a bit dated, and the loading times seemed extremely long (so its not taking advantage of my powerful PC). Some of the pathfinding can be bugged with people getting stuck on objects. The save system seems a bit broken, there are a few auto-save/quick-save slots but confirming load sometimes refuses to load. The manual saves seem to be randomly ordered. I ran into a crash when saving in Shanghai which seems to be a common bug for many people. After restarting the mission, it worked fine. There is a bug where you cannot unlock safes when your walk speed is set to the slowest pace which is really strange.
I had mixed feelings about this game. I did have fun, but I constantly was aware of the bizarre game design choices in an attempt to refresh the series, but it loses the identity of the series. I’d say this is one of those games where it feels like a bad Splinter Cell game, but might be good if it was a new franchise.