It's an okay stealth game that's worth playing once. But the issues go a lot deeper than just smaller levels and no rope arrows.

The worst design decision in this game was not committing to either first person or third person. The game tries to have both and it results in wonky sluggish movement because Garrett now has a physical body. The infamous floating Garrett bug was extremely irritating.

Most of the levels are fine but unfortunately nothing compares to the first two games. Even the famed Cradle wasn't quite as shocking as I expected it to be. It certainly had a potent vibe, but I expected to be more scared by what is apparently one of the scariest levels of all time. But maybe it really was back in 2004. I found some of the levels in Thief 1 scarier personally. In my opinion the seaside manor is the best level in this game.

Exploring the city between missions was a cool idea but this game had too many limitations to flesh it out properly. It became a tedious trek after the first time.

The story wasn't as good as the first two games and I already struggle to remember some of it, while I can recall the first two games' stories perfectly despite playing Deadly Shadows more recently than them. I was happy to get a definitive conclusion to Garrett's story though.