I’m tempted to rave about the story a bit, but I’ll hold off out of consideration because I’m not sure who is how far. Suffice it to say that it was what a sequel should be – it improved drastically on the shortcomings, and kept everything that was awesome.

That being said, I feel like all they have to do is make the combat outrageously unforgiving (or at least give the option to make it so). I found the game was much more entertaining when I pretended I couldn’t take out the four guards watching over a codex page, for instance, or forcing myself to complete something without alerting anybody despite the fact I could do it either way.

So I don’t really think your suggestions are necessary. I found (and actually, it’s getting insanely positive reviews) it already remedied the problems you’re talking about. However, the first game didn’t feature armor. Or money. Or plenty of the RPG elements you’re saying are already there. So maybe the next game WILL press that a bit further, I just don’t feel it’s needed.