I was really looking forward to this game and started playing it immediately after beating the first one, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ this one was a giant bag fumble. I had to seriously force myself to even finish the first act... Where do I even start?

First of all, this game looks hideous! It's not that the graphics are great - the models and textures look nice for a 2009 game - but the visibility is atrocious. It has a crazy over-saturated bloom effect over the screen at all times, the depth of field is too aggressive and likes to focus on the wrong things, and screen shake is so frequent and so aggressive that it not only makes aiming a weapon impossible, but it legit made my eyes hurt. The worst thing is that you can't turn these effects off in the settings.

The gunplay also received a big downgrade from the first game. The leaning mechanic was replaced by a cover system that only serves to get the player killed by sticking them to random walls. Although the weapons have been made hitscan and should in theory feel better, they have given the pistols a very short range after which the bullets just disappear, which in turn makes the focus ability pretty useless, which is a shame since I like the way they've reworked it.

The game loop is just meh now. They've gotten rid of stealth completely so now the game is just "walk over here, kill some bad guys, walk over there, kill more bad guys, breach a door with bullet time, bad guys, duel. Rinse and repeat"

Other than that, the voices in this game sound like they've been recorded on a Tesco Value microphone; they're super compressed and you hear a loud buzzing in the background of every voice line. The difficulty can be really hit or miss as well, with some levels being a hold W simulator and others swarming you with enemies that kill you in one hit immediately after you exit cover, like an average VALORANT opponent.

Overall, I really wanted to give this game a good review, because I genuinely cared about the story, but I just can't.

I was really looking forward to this game and started playing it immediately after beating the first one, but holy shit this one was a giant bag fumble. I had to seriously force myself to even finish the first act... Where do I even start? First of all, this game looks hideous! It's not that the graphics are great - the models and textures look nice for a 2009 game - but the visibility is atrocious. It has a crazy over-saturated bloom effect over the screen at all times, the depth of field is too aggressive and likes to focus on the wrong things, and screen shake is so frequent and so aggressive that it not only makes aiming a weapon impossible, but it legit made my eyes hurt. The worst thing is that you can't turn these effects off in the settings. The gunplay also received a big downgrade from the first game. The leaning mechanic was replaced by a cover system that only serves to get the player killed by sticking them to random walls. Although the weapons have been made hitscan and should in theory feel better, they have given the pistols a very short range after which the bullets just disappear, which in turn makes the focus ability pretty useless, which is a shame since I like the way they've reworked it. The game loop is just meh now. They've gotten rid of stealth completely so now the game is just "walk over here, kill some bad guys, walk over there, kill more bad guys, breach a door with bullet time, bad guys, duel. Rinse and repeat" Other than that, the voices in this game sound like they've been recorded on a Tesco Value microphone; they're super compressed and you hear a loud buzzing in the background of every voice line. The difficulty can be really hit or miss as well, with some levels being a hold W simulator and others swarming you with enemies that kill you in one hit immediately after you exit cover, like an average VALORANT opponent. Overall, I really wanted to give this game a good review, because I genuinely cared about the story, but I just can't.