Sense before starting: I was hearing a lot of different things about this game.  I was personally extremely intrigued because I love a good, strong female protagonist.  However, people who know I don't love stealth games warned me that I would get frustrated with this one.

Owned/Borrowed/Rented:  Rented, then later purchased

Play again? Well, I bought it :)

Thoughts

The visual style of Velvet Assassin is quite compelling.  It's beautiful and I love the style of the briefings.  Mission briefings are done in a memory style, panning over Polaroid shots that come to life as Violette Summers explains what she has seen and what needs to be done.  As you play the game and come upon areas where Violette has a hint for you, she recounts it as a memory.  The game is played as if you are in her morphine dreams, re-enacting what she has experienced in her life as an assassin.

Violette Summers is inspired by the WWII secret agent, Violette Szabo.  While some critics seem to feel that Violette's story is lackluster and the stealth mechanics of the game are inconsistent, I have been quite enjoying playing through her memories and I’m getting used to the stealth mechanics used in this game.  They are, admittedly, frustrating at times.  For instance, there have been times where it is indicated that I am fully hidden (Violette's silhouette is displayed in the bottom left of the screen and when surrounded by a purple halo, she is hidden in shadow), but somehow my head is peaking around the corner, the Nazis see me and I am forced to restart anew.

This brings me to my biggest frustration with this game.  Checkpoint save system.  This is infuriating as it forces a lot of needless repetition, which results in a kind of trial and error game-play that can become tiresome.  I sometimes find that I need to step away from the game (not necessarily literally, but I need to distract myself with, say, email/Twitter/Facebook/browsing the net for a minute or two).  It wouldn't be quite an issue if they weren't seemingly so far apart.  I'm not sure why the developers felt this was necessary, but I feel it's a terrible decision for games these days.

Other than the save system, however, I am enjoying all aspects of this game.  The voice acting is well done, I feel the dialogue overhead from the German soldiers is realistic: they complain and idly chat.  They are bored to be on patrol and one even goes on a rant about how someone stole chocolate from him.  I am in love with the cutscene/memory recount style as it feels nostalgic. 

One last thing that I want to highlight which I have enjoyed is that the angle at which you approach your target seems to determine the style of kill.  Some of the executions are a little overdone, especially considering you're trying to rush it so that you can drag the body out of the sight of the approaching patrol.  They are still dangerously beautiful and definitely give that "Aww yeah" feeling.

I am slowly starting to appreciate stealth games as I improve my own techniques.  Velvet Assassin is quite enjoyable for me despite the few problems it has.  Perhaps I'm enjoying it so much because I was overly skeptical, but nevertheless I am extremely happy to have a female protagonist to play.  If you're a guns-blazing kind of player, then I would suggest this either as a change of pace or I would advise you to stay away if you're not interested in trying something new.