Metrocide

Metrocide is a top-down arcade-like shooter for people who love the hunt, in the vein of Hitman or even Assassin's Creed -- to a certain extent. Unlike those other games, Metrocide holds your feet to the fire; once you've freaked out witnesses and roused the cops, you'll never be able to decrease your "wanted" level. What that means is that once you make a mistake, you have to live and die by it. And, typically, you will die by it. You must progress carefully, being mindful of which assignments you take on from your contact: He holds the keys to whom you'll go after next and the stakes your next target entails. Given that you start the game with next to no gear, you can't brute-force your way through making progress. It's tough, and it'll only get tougher for yourself if you allow it.

Despite the gratuitous tutorials, it's very easy to get lost. For example, it seems like you don't have a weapon at first, which raises a serious problem: if you don't have a way to complete any contracts, how do you earn money to buy better weaponry from a vending machine? Only after a random amount of button mashing and mouse clicking is it revealed that you start the game with a laser pistol. Similarly, things get clunky and counterintuitive when you do amass a formidable armory. (It's unclear how to best utilize your weapons until you've tinkered with them, which inevitably alerts the cops or almost always places a target on you before you even know it.) It's two steps forward, one step back when you start making headway -- but that's just the kind of game Metrocide is. There's a considerable learning curve despite its bare-bones control scheme (which is a good thing!). Just don’t expect to hop in and make progress right away.