Unparalleled production values hide a trite third person shooter sticking closely to the formula set by the predecessor
First off, what is new and improved... The visuals here are pretty incredible and the grandiosity of some levels is astounding (others though seem to be pulled from the first GoW).
The one key gameplay difference is in the vehicle and on-rail sections, which are spectacular, really messy (in a good way) and lot of fun. Besides being well designed in their own good, they break up the monotony of the main game, which is, similarly to the first one, quite monotonous once you get the jist of it...
The hide and shoot mechanic is pretty much all you have to care about... There are more weapons than in the first episode but you can easily finish the game with your original gun, the sniper rifle and grenades. Enemy AI has improved since GoW but is still predictable. What will kill you will be your impatience to get out of cover and shoot monsters. Otherwise you will be able to kill almost anybody if you patiently stay hidden, come out and shoot. As in GoW you spend most of your time hiding, coming out, shooting enemies, hiding again. Over and over until all the enemies are killed.
As in GoW, the game seriously lack in boss battles. The few there are very cool but the fact that there is no final boss is inexcusable.
For your person shooter, this is a long game. Issue is that it is not that interesting and gets repetitive quickly. I stopped playing it for almost 2 months having completely 2/3 of it... only recently I forced myself to pick it up again and finish it. Not very exciting.
I am sure on-line play makes the overall package a great value but I do not play online so discount everything I wrote with that.