Joined this thread way too late, too much stuff to go through but did a bit of reading just now 
For me the frustration is I know IO are a very capable and good studio but for some reason they don’t do small stuff that would make a big difference when added together, or worse they actually put effort in to give the game LESS features. I’ve mentioned some of this in the content suggestion/feedback thread but keeping brief it’s stuff like:
Already-made assets being poorly or not at all used
Ghost Mode: I can live with the multiplayer being removed, but it boggles the mind they didn’t do a single player version of this. A gamemode where you have a series of random targets every single time and have to kill them with limited loadout… who cares if it’s only limited to Miami and Santa Fortuna, it’s free and very replayable content
The Brothers ET: It’s been done and finished for years, it has a briefing video, it has Diana’s lines, it has all the models and NPC paths working… I’m still holding out hope they release it in the coming months but the fact they removed it after modders started playing with it makes me not hopeful. Which brings me to…
Elusive Target formula is a waste
As many point out, current ET formula works against what makes Hitman great. You have freedom of approach, but unlike normal Hitman you are punished big-time for doing something that doesn’t end up working… you get locked out of the content and rewards. This disincentivizes all players from ever doing anything creative or dare I say ‘fun’, not to mention unless you actively follow around all new NPCs and wait for all new dialogue to finish in your playthrough then you’ll be missing out on stuff IO made and you’ll never get to experience it in game. When people have done creative runs and posted videos of it, it’s because they found a way to bypass the point of the ET system (They pulled out their internet or hit Alt F4), so if the best stuff from an ET is from people actively bypassing the system, maybe that’s a sign they should change the system…
Some people say it’s been like this since launch and shouldn’t be changed… that’s not actually a reason to keep it. Some people say if it’s changed then they “won’t be elusive anymore” A) So what? B) That’s not true either, there are like 3-4 different things going on that make a target elusive, getting rid of one of those things won’t mean they’re suddenly “not elusive” any more.
Here are things that could be considered to make them ‘elusive’: 1) The target doesn’t show on Instinct, 2) You can’t ever replay after failing or completing objectives 3) They only appear for 10 days of the year.
If it was made so you could replay them as much as you like but only in that ten day window then it’s gone for a year, I’d say that’s pretty damn elusive and it would be a very big improvement on current formula even though some people will still complain. This also still works from a marketing perspective, because if potential buyers don’t have the game for that ten day period then they’re still missing out just as much as they are now.
Entrances/Exits in H3 maps... where are they?
They said from the start H3 maps would have a heavier focus on story, but they didn’t mention that would come at the expense of replayability/contracts mode. It’s all fine and well having all the default starts be far away spawns that take you through linear areas and don’t let you bring any inventory… except when you’re not in Story mode. When you take out the pointless default spawns, and directors commentaries, and duplicate spawns in Dartmoor, each map has about 5 starting locations; this compares with H2 maps which had 6-12 each I believe (except Hawke’s Bay). This affects contracts in a mostly negative way I’d say as there are now less choices, it can be good for very specific contracts where you don’t want the player to be able to spawn in a certain disguise but on the whole it’s a negative.
Then there’s the exits… what were they thinking not having a single unlocked public exit in Mendoza? Every contract requires you to trespass and usually deal with guards. Berlin is not as bad but also needs some work, they actually removed an exit rather than fix it, and people already know about Dartmoor’s lack of exits. Lack of exits limits contract ideas AND general strats
Contracts mode being hindered
This is the 4th year since Contracts mode has at all been touched (Excluding removing the possibility of making no target contracts or modded contracts lel) and there are more than enough threads on the type of improvements Contracts Mode is in dire need of, but I just want to add that recently I discovered the framework is already in place for players to be able to specify a particular gun (or bomb, etc) in kill method (In same way as melee items) but IO chose to disable it. This entire time we could’ve been making unsilenced gun contracts, or a whole new wave of possibly interesting retrieval-based contracts; instead IO decided “No, let’s just leave that to melee weapons only for some reason”
The worst part is knowing IO could have fairly easily done these things while making H3, and still can right now and always claim they’re wanting and listening to player feedback, but they still won’t do these particular things 
Then yeah, add onto that the mediocre sponsored contracts, and restricted amount of player Featured Contracts, and the 7DS hoo-ha; but if the changes I listed above were made then these other things wouldn’t matter to me much because at least the base game would be pretty solid 
