I'm on my 3rd playthrough, was a good game imo

The mechanics are dodgy sometimes, the combat is pretty poo pooty and the story is incredibly bad, but the gameplay is fun and the levels are neat.  The thing that I don't get is why the story is so terrible and why the setting is so bland when they clearly cared about it enough to put in all the boring lore snippets and all this intrigue about the outsider.  Still, I am really enjoying it.

I'm on my 3rd playthrough, was a good game imo

I assume you've done/are doing nonlethal and the opposite?  Is there a big difference?  I'm curious how much the "Chaos system" really plays a part other than spawning a few more rats and guards.

Yeah, I'm doing no kills no detection run now. Honestly not that much until the later levels. I think the last 3 are the only ones I really noticed a difference in. I was telling ZIGS that the last level on high chaos is way more fun than on low chaos. I mean it's still the same level, there is just different things happening is all. Other than dialogue there isn't a huge difference between high and low chaos levels which is pretty disappointing imo but still a fun game to play through overall.

The thing that I don't get is why the story is so terrible and why the setting is so bland when they clearly cared about it enough to put in all the boring lore snippets and all this intrigue about the outsider.

I agree with this. Also I don't understand why, if they cared so much about crafting this world they would only make one game. Saw this on a kotaku post:

Speaking to me in an interview last week, Smith said he kinda wants Dishonored to be a one-shot deal.

"Part of me would love to see future games leverage this world," he said, "and part of me would love it if the vault door was just closed and that's it. This is your one view into the Empire of the Isles and into the city of Dunwall."

Granny rags is one crazy bitch

Speaking of which, on my high chaos run I had a side quest happen with her that didn't happen on my low chaos run so that was cool.

was it the one where you cook that guy

yeah

that was pretty cool

I had a high chaos until halfway through when I got it down to low.  I got to cook the mob boss but still got what I assume is the best possible ending; anything happier than that and it would be sickening.  Going through now and just murdering everyone I lay eyes on, it's pretty satisfying.  I am noticing that after a certain point a lot of the guards start wearing facemasks, there are more tallboys in certain parts, and a guard yelled out "fetch" when I attacked him which I hadn't heard in the entire course of my first 20 hour playthrough.

Boy that was fun, and a lot faster.  The differences are pretty cool, the last level is indeed really cool on high chaos.  Probably the best part was how incredibly dark Emily gets.  I was already impressed with how good her voice acting is, but seeing her go all crazy because you murdered people is pretty cool.  It seems like a lot of the difference between low and high chaos comes out in the dialogue more than anything else, the game is already incredibly bleak to begin with so it's hard to go much further down than that.  Not saving Emily alone makes the ending twice as awful though.

I got this game, its pretty cool. I'm at the 3rd mission

Why are you punishing me for killing bad people in an assassin game! Why do you give me all these cool ways to kill people? And what is up with this outsider dude anyway

I would call a dystopian hellscape ruled by a twisted little girl empress with no hope in her blackened heart a more than satisfactory reward for murdering half of the population of steampunk victorian england

the outsider is just the author insertion character.  The best decision they made was making all of his poo poo skippable.

I might try a new play through where I kill every single person that it is possible to kill on every single level.

I might try a new play through where I kill every single person that it is possible to kill on every single level.

I did just that, it was awesome and super fun after doing no kills