I purchased the game during the Steam summer sale because I found the plot and storyline to be intriguing and I wanted to try another Bethesda game different from Fallout which I was a huge fan of.

The major problem I have with this the game thus far is that even when I seemingly turn everything to high it seems like the graphics are still in medium settings (doesn't look too impressive) and I still run everything at over 120 FPS which is strange because Far Cry 3 (a series released at a similar time to Dishonored) should have roughly equal graphics quality but Far Cry 3 challenges my PC a lot more despite having roughly equal requirements hardware-wise.

I'm not trying to knock on the game, as it does pack a punch where it counts in the plot but I was just wondering if there is a way to make it look more visually impressive? I set everything to high and anti-aliasing and rat shadows but it still doesn't look that good?

Lots of people don't like the graphics in Dishonored, so it's possible that they just aren't for you. In which case there's nothing you can do. I for one like the graphics, but that's not a common opinion.

One thing that's recommended though is to turn the brightness DOWN. The game is way to bright at it's default "adjust until you can barely see the first symbol", so try turning it quite a bit down and see if that helps? Perhaps they didn't want people complaining that the game was too dark, but it was almost certainly how it was supposed to be played.

The graphics seem very horrible, and the graphics department didn't quite realize they looked bad until release, but I have grown to like them. They are bright and slightly rough, giving it the appearance of an old oil painting, which is what they intended it to look like. I agree with the previous post, turning the brightness down might help if you don't like the style.