Love the game, but stealth definitely was pretty punishing right at the start of the game. That said, it became incredibly easy with the upgrades/unlocks progressing throughout the game, even a bit too easy. Frankly I hope upcoming nerfs don’t make it even easier later in the game.

I think the best solution for early gameplay would be to give a window of opportunity to react to getting caught. this is also an upgrade (Fast Talker or something like that), so you can send Nix to distract the guy. Perhaps it would be as simple as to have that ability unlocked by default.

Add a few more checkpoint saves throughout, or simply an option to save in more places since it’s usually disabled in places you sneak about, and I think most issues around stealth would be fixed.