You know what? I'm gonna say that I can see where these guys are coming from. The Hitman games have some cool ideas, and when I watch someone play a level, it seems like something I'd really enjoy. I love the stealth, and I love the variety of options you have in taking out your targets.
But then I actually play one of the games and I'm greeted by awkward controls. I get past that, knock some caterer out and dress up as him, take the stuff he's carrying, and walk in through the back door, thinking I'm being all sneaky. Then some guy screams at me in Spanish and everyone starts shooting me, and I have no idea what I did wrong. That's just one example, but variations on this are pretty much my whole experience with the series. I try something, it doesn't work, and I'm left confused on why.
I don't think it's a bad idea to try to lower that barrier to entry and tone down the trial and error stuff. I don't think it's impossible to do these things without removing what made the other games interesting. You can let the player figure stuff out without leaving them completely clueless as to what's going on, and leave some room for error instead of having everyone instantly start shooting if you make a mistake.
Now, if they are removing the stuff that made the other games interesting in their effort to streamline the game, then yeah, that sucks. I don't know, I haven't been following the development of the game, but it sounds like that may be the case with the comparisons to Splinter Cell Conviction. It's easy to go too far with these attempts to remove unwanted frustration, and can tough to come up with ideas that solve the problems without removing depth. Like, if the problem is people getting lost, a less talented designer will just show the player where to go or block off paths that he's not supposed to follow, whereas a smarter designer will come up with ways to help the player figure out where to go by himself.
But I'm just saying, I can see where they're coming from with these statements. I don't think it's wrong to want to make games a little more accessible, and I don't think "accessible" is necessarily synonymous with "stupid and simple".