9. Dishonoured
Dishonoured may be an artistic steampunk vision of Dickens London and more immersive than any other game out in 2012 (after playing it for 10 hours I genuinely found myself stood at the side of the road confused as to why I couldnt teleport across), but by buggery is it psychotic. Looking into the eyes of terrified guard as you dig a blade deep into his trachea is a common occurrence here, along with burning people alive, possessing crooks in order to force them to commit suicide, and, lest we forget, having the guards eaten alive by rats. The reason this game only makes it into the ninth slot is because this violence is pretty important in terms of character development, with the atrocities you commit being mirrored in how far the city deteriorates. Kill everyone you come across and Dunwall (where the game is set) becomes a truly vile place, full of plague victims and rats with a taste for human flesh. On the other hand, if you decide to be a pacifist and go the entire game without killing anyone, which many people chose to do, youll be rewarded with a nice clean city and la-di-dah everybody lives happily ever after ending. So although Dishonoured makes the list for its realism in the death sequences, it is has been made like that for a purpose rather than to simply satisfy the blood-lust of players. An argument could also be made that a desire to skulk around in the dark watching strangers is also more than a little concerning, but a dissection of the entire stealth genre isnt what you signed up to read, so lets just move on.