I think you can see that judging by my rating that I don't share as much enthusiasm as for Gears of War 1, but that's not to say that Gears of War 2 is a bad game. It is actually really good and a great action game which is loads of fun to play. Nevertheless, there are some flaws that Epic Games should have looked into.
I have played some missions in the campaign, just enough to get the story. Clearly, the characters and dialogue have improved and the story itself has more depth and twists. You get to have a small sub-plot about Dom in this game. The cutscenes have improved and have a lot of depth. When Dom finds his wife, it was one of the most well-directed video game cutscenes I have ever seen. Seeing both their faces made me think that all this is real. Obviously, the story was a big improvement over the original game (and the originals story was not bad either) both emotionally and in structure.
Gameplay is very good. It has a few improvements to the first game like a chainsaw duel, execution moves, surviving while wounded by crawling, new weapons (like flamethrower) etc. Even though the improvements are there, I do not think there are as many as I hoped there would be for a sequel. It seemed more like an expansion to me. The campaign's story was good, but I don't think that most of the mission design was as good as it should have been. In co-operative duel, there has these features (chainsaw duel, execution moves) plus the environment is not safe either since in some maps, strong hailing rain will occasionally appear and if you stay outside too long you will ...well, die!! The gore has increased as well so the game is more fun (but makes it less suitable for a younger age). The most note-worthy improvement in co-operate versus mode is that you can add bots to the field so if you are a loner, you do just that to have all the fun.
The graphics have improved from the first game. This shows the capabilities of an Xbox 360 video game. The rendering and detail has made a great improvement. The blood is more colourful as in the first game, the blood was always dark, dark red. They are quite close to challenging Call of Duty 4 or Crysis graphics in terms of realistic-looking.
The music overall, is not much of an improvement over the previous game's intense songs, but the main menu theme for this game is better than for the first. All in all, Gears of War 2 is a very good game which fans of the first one will enjoy. I am just a little bit disappointed, because after playing Half Life 2, I thought that as a sequel, this would have more improvement then it does. Nevertheless, it is a great game and should still be bought even if you have the first game on an Xbox 360, just don't get it at full price.
I have played some missions in the campaign, just enough to get the story. Clearly, the characters and dialogue have improved and the story itself has more depth and twists. You get to have a small sub-plot about Dom in this game. The cutscenes have improved and have a lot of depth. When Dom finds his wife, it was one of the most well-directed video game cutscenes I have ever seen. Seeing both their faces made me think that all this is real. Obviously, the story was a big improvement over the original game (and the originals story was not bad either) both emotionally and in structure.
Gameplay is very good. It has a few improvements to the first game like a chainsaw duel, execution moves, surviving while wounded by crawling, new weapons (like flamethrower) etc. Even though the improvements are there, I do not think there are as many as I hoped there would be for a sequel. It seemed more like an expansion to me. The campaign's story was good, but I don't think that most of the mission design was as good as it should have been. In co-operative duel, there has these features (chainsaw duel, execution moves) plus the environment is not safe either since in some maps, strong hailing rain will occasionally appear and if you stay outside too long you will ...well, die!! The gore has increased as well so the game is more fun (but makes it less suitable for a younger age). The most note-worthy improvement in co-operate versus mode is that you can add bots to the field so if you are a loner, you do just that to have all the fun.
The graphics have improved from the first game. This shows the capabilities of an Xbox 360 video game. The rendering and detail has made a great improvement. The blood is more colourful as in the first game, the blood was always dark, dark red. They are quite close to challenging Call of Duty 4 or Crysis graphics in terms of realistic-looking.
The music overall, is not much of an improvement over the previous game's intense songs, but the main menu theme for this game is better than for the first. All in all, Gears of War 2 is a very good game which fans of the first one will enjoy. I am just a little bit disappointed, because after playing Half Life 2, I thought that as a sequel, this would have more improvement then it does. Nevertheless, it is a great game and should still be bought even if you have the first game on an Xbox 360, just don't get it at full price.