Modern difficulty settings

Yeah, looks like it.

>(e.g. stealth playthrough is harder than a warrior/melee playthrough).
Isn't that usually the opposite though?

What's the point of having more than 2 difficulties?

Easy mode for casuals who want to turn their brain off and play, and normal mode for people who want to fully experience all the intricacies of the gameplay that the developers crafted. We don't need any more than that.

>Difficulty levels shouldn't exist in a game. Most of the time increasing the difficulty just makes the player take more damage and gives the enemies more health, it doesn't really change the way the game plays, you just end up doing the same thing for longer.
If I remember correctly, some games used to have additional objectives depending on the difficulty setting. I think games like Goldeneye and Timesplitters were like that.