Simplified, Streamlined, Stealth / Action, With a few twists.
I have just finished playing the first level of Velvet Assassin! And I have to say its quite good. I played with the "Agent" Difficulty and the Mission took me about one hour to complete, and I think I have a feel for how the rest of the game will play out.
The stealthyness part of the game is actually quite shallow and makes the game fairly easy. Everything is sort of tool tip controlled by right clicking or left clicking when your near a point of interest. Crouching is your only movement based stealth option. And your character gives off a purple glow to help the player know that you are indeed well hidden. This coupled with sub par AI makes the game really easy. You rarely have to shoot a Nazi in this game most of the time you can see the timing of there patrols and sneak behind them one by one picking them off with "silent Kills" (Knife to the vitals with hand cupping their mouth) The kill animations are neat and pretty satisfying to watch and they vary it up I think theres about 4 or 5 different silent kill animations.
At the end of the level you get to see a summary of how you did and shows the total possible kills and how many you got, total silent kills out of the kills that you got, total collectables (trinkets strewn throughout the level) found, and how long you took. And it gives you a grade of either Rookie or Agent depending on how poorly or awesome you did.
Shooting is somewhat clumsy but it should be most games make it way to easy to just start popping people. Although aiming is a lot easier than say (Splinter Cell).
The story is told very neatly through the game-play as you move through the mission. Its definitely a very immersive game and you feel like you are playing someones memories as you move along. The textures and style of the graphics I think are purposely done in a specific style to esentuate the feeling of dreamlike memories.
My summary would be. If you are into WWII history, especially the espionase aspect of the war which was a HUGE part of the war, then buy this game and enjoy the story. I will definitely finish this game off even if it isn't the greatest stealth game I've ever played, which would be Splinter Cell 1 and 2 btw.
Peace Out. 7/10