Dark Messiah had unique combat mechanics in hazard filled environments, where you could create all sorts of physics based accidents to eliminate enemies.

Game combat was showcased in the demo which made a lot of people at the time to believe it would be the game of the year. Unfortunately the demo contained all the best levels and the full game fell short with less engaging ones.

I did not play much games since that time so i do not know if some other games outclassed the Dark Messiah combat experience but trying the demo is worth it for a lot of fun in great level design. https://archive.org/details/DarkMessiahMightAndMagicDemo