Gambled and lost.

In short, I was wrong. Single-player mode may reduce the frustration of difficult-to-discern detail - though not remove it, since it's still tough to distinguish some obstacles and decor - but it also discards some massive benefits of multi-player that I was taking for granted. No one to distract enemies while you infiltrate a guarded area. No one to accomplish tasks in parallel. No one to revive you if you die. Monaco doesn't scale its difficulty by the number of players, which means that by yourself, it's just hard.

I'm sure I'll revisit this as a party game every now and then, but I really don't have the patience for this by myself. Which is a shame, because not only did I fail to get far enough to unlock the Hacker, but -- now that I'm actually bothering to read it, the pre-mission story is kind of fascinating. Slightly reminiscent of The Usual Suspects.

Yeah, maybe I'll just watch the movie instead.

Progress: Gave up -- Locksmith's story, Hospital.