They probably shouldn’t have fired the guy who was writing the story, but there you have it.

Heres the deal:

Most people in this sub are highly subjective, and hell, so am I, but I have nearly 400 hours in DL2 and grew up playing DL1, so heres my honest opinion:

Dl2 has better parkour and combat. The animations are better, the sound design is better, the amount of attacks you can do is better, and the human enemies are Better. The physics are janky (zombies wont bounce off walls or obstacles correctly all the time), and grappling enemies is still very rough (if you grapple an enemy off a roof - or just kick them - theyll hit an invisible wall and then fall straight down. The viral jump attack hits an invisible wall at the edge of ledges instead of flying off) but that should be fixed in April and I can personally look past it. Theres more variants of zombie and volatiles are really fun to fight. Truly, DL2 is an overall more modern experience (duh) and the gameplay alone has led to me playing for nearly 400 hours. The map is huge with tons of interior space and enemies to fight, and the dynamic music when parkouring is second to none. Theres also plenty if random events to keep you busy, but imo not enough to keep a less patient person than myself engaged. I think theres like 3 human events and 3 zombie events. BUT If you like to run around with the best parkour in gaming rn, with super fun combat, looting and upgrading your consumables + weapon mods + skills + stats, and grinding out little missions and collecting weapons, completing the occasional parkour puzzle and sidequest, all with a SUPER meh but mechanically fun story, this game is for you.

BUT, the game feels pretty lifeless. The world isnt very immersive and lacks environmental storytelling. Npcs feel like npcs, and I was very disappointed that the game wasnt more of a “sim” experience like how the E3 trailer would lead you to believe. There is a overall lack of polish that is quite noticeable in pretty much all areas in this regard, and some jank in many others. Some animations (like the wallrun kick) are badly designed to the point where using them feels like conscious efforts instead of situational options, and chases are so poorly implemented that 99% of the time you choose to start them. Just take a look at this most recent roadmap to see what is lacking and what is coming.

I was hoping to walk around the streets of villedor at day, seeing survivors going about surviving, scavenging, and talking, living. PKs holding breadlines and public hangings. Then at night, the infected come out, and the street is no longer safe. The E3 trailer nearly explicitly said this is what the game would be like, but it isnt. During the day the streets are filled with biters and theres like 2 survivor and PK random occurrences each, and they both dont consider the biters in any way (like survivors will hold a funeral right next to a bunch of biters that only attack the survivors when you arrive - sort of thing) the rooftops are full of life, if by life you mean the same copy and pasted settlements that do little more than house a bed and stash, and the same 4 ambient survivor animations. Merchants dont sell anything useful either. Theyre mostly there to sell stuff to. The game is the definition of “the player is the reason the game world exists”. To put it plainly, it feels too much like a game.

The map is pretty repetitive (which I personally can look past) and almost all the interiors are identical with slight changes here and there. This is something I hope they fix

And i think that’s it. Overall, I say get the game. At least: get it after the April (combat) updates, at most: get it after the June (parkour) updates (theres also a night experience update somewhere in there but idr) Its really fun and very cathartic and satisfying gameplay-wise. The story is pretty bad compared to what we were promised, and certain aspects are very to extremely disappointing (looking at you, sunken city), but there some meaningful choices you can make throughout it and I would say its definitely better than DL1’s main story - with, I think, 3 endings.