Tell me more about it, coz I installed Hitman Trillogy, played two story mode missions and found it boring and clunky as fuck.
Maybe this freelancer will work..
I was beginning to write a 3 part essay to answer your question but I will try to condense it. I will speak of the whole Hitman World of assassination package from now on.
It is an intensely deliberate game. You have to think many moves ahead. Plot your kills and how you are getting away. Silenced pistols and Sniper rifles are basically the only usable guns. You never want to get into a firefight because that means you have failed and will most likely die.
The story is just a prologue to this game, it is all about playing the levels again and again. Different kills bring different rewards. But on your way to Freelancer it should be enough to just play through the story once. And you do have to do that because you will stand absolutely no chance if you don't (and they might actually lock the access unless you finish the story).
Alongside the story you get into the Elusive targets. Same maps as the story but different targets and sometimes a little somthing to spice things up, different time of day or the map has been taken over by a movie production, etc. These you can not save and the moment you kill a target or do an additional objective, your can't retry it. Now things get a bit intense but this is really the way to play the game. Saving in Hitman is for wusses. I said what I said. And you better forget about saving altogether because after the story and a couple of elusive targets it's time for Freelancer. This is the mode which makes the hard men like me who think saving is for wusses, cry.
I am kidding, of course, I am not that hard. but Hitman Freelancer is. And it has been close to making me cry. 18 missions and you can not fail a single one of them (you
can fail one, but it makes it extra hard to finish after that - also there are special missions you can't fail - it's a whole thing)! It is very different from the main game, you get currency for completing objectives which you can spend in missions to buy weapons. You also level up, no matter how you do (which is good because at the start you will do badly) and that unlocks stuff like home decor for your absurdly lavish home base and also extra room to carry items and weapons into missions. The "story" is about some weird secret cabal or something that runs the world behind the scenes and you have to kill all of them. It's basically the main story without any twists.
I don't think I can go much further without having to change that "condensed" thing I said at the start. But I love this game. It has had missteps, I think the whole Seven Deadly Sins DLC is not very good. But it is so fun and cleverly funny, not only with all the hilarious kills you can make (again, guns are not really the way to go) but also just simple stuff like letting you dress up as a fashion icon at a big fashion show and actually walk the catwalk without anyone raising an eyebrow. Another mission has you infiltrating a band as their new drummer. Does agent 47's cover get blown when he sits down behind the drums? No he bloody well beats them like he's been playing drums all his life. And then he kills the singer.
Both these examples are entirely optional and easy to miss and the game is filled to the brim with them.
It's a game which is extremely rewarding, but it does demand a lot of time.
I do know that the 2008 remake wasn't that well received, but I'm planning on playing them in order. I think that getting the entire pack for 6-7 bucks was a massively good deal, though!