Stealth is a genre that needs some more love. Here is a guided rant about issues that it's had so far and why Metal Gear Solid is the only game that really accomplishes what it sets out to.
A quote from Hideo Kojima brings up the notion of the wavering quality of modern day gaming, and a deconstruction of what constitutes a good game and artistic value follow suit.
Stealth action games from the Hitman series are no longer available for purchase on Russian Steam. When going to the game pages, the message “This product is not available in your region” appears. The changes were noticed to us by one of our users along with a screenshot.
Hideo writes: "We experimented with magnetic motion capture in "Metal Gear Solid: Integral", and in MGS2, we adopted optical motion capture for the first time. Was the shooting done about 25 years ago? Well, back then, everything was trial and error, but every day felt fresh and exciting."
I really liked Tenchu back in the day.
98 was a heavy year for stealth. Tenchu, the original Thief, and MGS all came out. Still, Metal Gear is the only one I consider to be truly about stealth.
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory is the best stealth game. I loved MGS but would hardly even consider it a stealth game.