Aliasalpha: Agreed it is flawed. I haven't played it since version 3.x and they're now up to 6 but the community patches seemed to do more harm than good. Admittedly the main reason I say that is that they added the single biggest game ruining event for me, the kuei jin temple having infinitely respawning guards, who the FUCK thought that'd be a good idea??
That said, the game is nothing short of fantastic, a veritable diamond in the rough and if you save regularly and can put up with the annoying niggles you'll get a hell of a good game. Its not many games I finish more than 10 times.
Oh yeah, and absolutely NO chance of getting through Bloodlines without killing. Plenty of times you can avoid guards but there's certain spots where only incredible violence will suffice.
It's changed drastically since 3.xx, respawns have been removed, hundreds of other things fixed, and all game-changing elements have been moved to an optional component. Playing with Wesp's patch is almost a must now, a major improvement.