Ambitious to say the least, but it lost something in the translation.
Another gripe are the very strange "bugs" that take place in this game. An example would be the elevator in the level "Nurse's Office". After obtaining the required key card you need to backtrack in order to advance the game. However, after Alma attacks you from this same elevator, I decided that it was an in-game glitch because the only way back down was through this same elevator. Sure enough after I restarted the game from the LAST SAVE POINT (there are no manual or quick saves in FEAR 2) the glitch managed to somehow correct itself and the elevator remained open, as it should have done in the first place. Another, among several glitches, involves the use of the SHIFT button to thwart off character attacks. Sometimes it works and some times it doesn't. Last saved restarts seem to resolve the issue, but not always. However, this type of SHIFT button defensive method is a novel idea and is implemented rather well throughout the game. It would have been even better if it could have also been used to save someone else as to give the player a choice whether or not to have someone accompany the player. This isn't no big deal; however, seeing that the AI has been doing a little too much 4:20.
Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed FEAR 2 and thought that it was put together fairly well. I loved the RUIN stage the most as this was done extremely well. A person can crank up the game to its highest graphical settings on a medium based PC and still play it without much difficulty. The sounds are done fairly well also and definitely add to the horrific atmosphere. But when I want to play my games WITHOUT any music I mean with NO MUSIC! FEAR 2 and its predecessors force you to listen to music in climatic situations. Unfortunately this spoils the element of surprise for the player as the music gives away most of these events before they even happen. Is FEAR 2 predictable? Most of the time it is aside from audible cues as the lighting within FEAR 2 will give most of them away. The game does have its scary moments, but for best effect it should be played while you're alone in the dark with the sound a little higher than usual. Playing FEAR 2 in a bright-populated atmosphere seriously degrades the scare effect…duh?
The most predictable element is that the player KNOWS he's going to be alone throughout most of the game so having any emotional attachments to other game characters just isn't going to happen. I felt like shooting Stokes just so she'd shut the hell up. Uhuh, let's just order that new Becket guy into a 10 to 1 firefight while I baby-sit Mr. Headache (Sgt. Keegan). There were points in FEAR 2 that became a little too clichéd as to why your character must do everything alone to really be believable. Either way, Colonel Vaneck was probably my most memorable and favourite nemesis. The developers really knew how to make a bad guy irritate the hell outta you to the point where you really wanted to splatter his pea-brain all over the place. The main problem people seem to have with FEAR 2 is interpreting the story line. It can be somewhat confusing, but if the story was followed closely throughout the series it really isn't because after all, it's a Mature rated game.
The control is very tight, but lacks the finesse of the previous lean ability. The way it ends does leave the suggestion that there will be a FEAR 3. If there is a FEAR 3 then I hope that Monolith and its affiliates go a no-holds-barred approach. Especially taking out the strict linear path approach that most titles seem to suffer from. I'm not suggesting a RPG type game, but let's also not become too narrow minded. Instant scares such as the in-your-face approach that the original FEAR has was far more effective. I found at times that with the original FEAR there were points where I didn't even want to look at my screen because of this. In FEAR 2 this effect was lost at times because I wasn't even looking in the right direction of what happened.
So if you read this far through this "review", than great. If you're a fan of FEAR than that's great too as you will enjoy this instalment. But only if you can overlook some nasty flaws that will eventually grind your guts. It's a shame that Monolith came so close to creating an almost perfect game with FEAR 2. Hopefully, if there is a 3, Monolith will fine-tune a great franchise into a well-deserved finale.