Stealth melee build?

[Infiltrator]

I was looking forward to the cut-throat melee build I planned out but it simply isn't working out for me, I'm about to hit the Junkyard and I've done pretty much everything up to that point.

8 str 8 dex 7 agi 3 will 5 perc 5 int

specced in melee, stealth, hacking, lockpicking, mechanical, pickpocket, dodge, evasion. I completely skipped out on any psi powers (maybe this is the problem?).

with a 10-16ish knife I barely do any damage, while the guy with the crossbow crits me for 70ish damage. I can take out solitary targets but I've realized they are practically non-existent and there is no way to lure someone away with a "whisper" feat or a distraction-inducing item (which would be cool).

[UnLimiTeD]

With a cutthroat attack, you should be able to oneshot most organic targets.
Without hacking, Getting past turrets is nigh impossible, though, every melee build kinda needs either that or a plentiful supply of EMP grenades.
With full evasion the Crossbow guy shouldn't hit you more than once or twice before you take him down; A kick to the groin is always helpful and the reason my second hand is always empty. Don't know why I need a free hand to kick someone in the naughty bits.
But yeah, it's hard.
And it's really hard against security (mechanical).
I think the upcoming patch will buff a few feats working with that playstyle. Also, yeh, psionics really help. Do they help enough to justify the points? I don't know, I'm waiting for the next version to try.^^

[LazyMonk]

Infiltrator do you have the opportunist feat? Its a must if you have been using the Dirty Kick.
My first character was a stealthy knife guy without any psy powers but he also used traps. Finished the alpha twice with this build
without many issues.

For those nasty bots, bring a sledgehammer, you have enough strength and melee points to use it after all.

[Infiltrator]

Well what good is cutthroat if there are 2-3 enemies shooting at me while I kill one guy?

I did use kick+opportunist, but that was only semi-decent at the start and fell off quickly as people started wearing heavier armor.

I didn't even bother with bots, just ignored them.

[Styg]

You can't beat everything in the game with knives and I think that's not unreasonable. Since you've gone with high dexterity why not invest in grenades.

Also, you've got 8 strength so you can always switch to sledgehammer to deal with the heavy armored targets.

The way I like to play the stealth build the most is to open with cut throat to immediately remove one enemy from the fight and then switch to SMG for point blank burst.