Dishonored

As luck (and a couple of surprise gift cards) would have it, I managed to pick this up. To quote myself from a comment on another forum, it cannot be overstated how great this game is. Beautiful n' original setting, super-fluid mechanics, competent story, and most of all, the bloody friggin' freedom to progress through the game how you want (and neither railroad you nor kick you in the balls for trying to do so). The fact that you can stealth around a bit, teleport behind a guard and slit his throat, misstep and get spotted by another, then proceed to kick ass with a sword and a pistol for a while before making a grand parkour-y escape across nearby rooftops is proof of its awesomeness. No portion of said sequence feels clunky, incomplete, or phoned-in at all. And none of it was scripted. :D

Regarding other things brought up: the game seemed long enough to me, and there's plenty of replayability to be had what with the multitudes of ways to complete objectives and progress forward. To use a Xaser-ism, it's very micro-nonlinear, which is a mega-great thing. It's something no first-person game has done in recent years except for Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which was great for much of the same reasons. ;)

Also, seconded Spork's comment re: graphics. Though that might just be because all UE3 games are at pretty much the same level to me, graphically speaking. I'm so used to Doom n' pixels that I honestly can't tell these days. :P

There are many new good releases right now. I bought this (an animated movie :-))!