This game is given too much credit, especially for a Total War game. I'm not a hater or a lover, just a criticizer.
Prologue - Installation: I must include a sub chapter for this because this was the most tedious part of the game. Never before have I had to endure such a harsh installation process. All in all it took about 1 hour. Only for me to find out the game lagged bad on my laptop, I had to uninstall and move to my desktop. 2 hours time trying to get setup. OH, and I almost forgot to mention, you need a really BADASS computer to run this game! I mean I'm already equipped with this stuff but for the regular RTS gamer, wouldn't they be in for a huge surprise when they find out battles suck on their computer!
Story and Campaign:
Not much to say here, its the same as Medieval: Total War, marrying off your daughters, taking cities, manging cities, assassin, spies etc. Same goes for every TW game. SO satisfying. So basically its the same classic campaign. You chose your faction, and then you move to a map that shows the landscape of medieval Europe, along with the placements of other factions, armies, forts and the settlements. You capture settlements to expand territory get income and please your Pope (if you're using a Catholic faction). The process of the conquering and managing an empire to success is painstaking but in the end you are very pleased and accomplished.
Gameplay:
Alright this is where they F'ed up here. Gameplay is unrealistic and very flashy. Just taking one look at the battles is only to look epic and real in the graphics section but the gameplay is mutilating. Battles are slow-paced and sometimes boring. In MTW and RTW and don't forget STW, battles were fast paced and always kept you on your toes. but in M2TW, you find your self just looking and the detail of the soldier than the detail of your current predicament.
It's not a good balance and that is what this game is mostly praised for. but still, I want to give you an example of the unrealism. For example, lightly armored swordsmen take down a heavily armored cavalrymen and cutting through their ranks still (OH, BUT YOU GET A BONUS FOR TWO-HANDED SWORDSMEN!!!). That's one example of unrealism, and I could continue to list them, but I won't. Now, don't get me wrong, not all Total War games have explicit realism but the BS is heavy here. Mods can be used that fix this. And I use them all the time. For that - specific - purpose. One one last detail, the units. TW games are know for its diverse units, and how to use them, but this game just makes me upset on that note. Most the units in the game are copies, just with different colors or design. So basically you end up with factions with the same kind of units, except with differences on how they look and their stats. And thats annoying because it takes out some of the strategy, I mean right off the bat the success of you battle 50 percent counts on how many men you have. And which ones are stronger. You can combine you numbers and and stats with morale and boom instant battle. Their used to be alot more to a Total War game than that.
Graphics:
The graphics are hands down amazing, the animations are detailed, and battles are just plain fun to watch.
Multi-player:
Multi-player could have been better. They kept the same options from RTW, you would think they would have expanded on it, yet, you can still find good matches and I fell there would be the real challenge (real people won't give you the chance to stare at the units in game, unlike the AI, unless you want to see them slaughtered)
All the Cons:
Sp lets clean up on this because I rarely had anything good to say.
- Multi-player should have been expanded on.
- AI isn't such an improvement either
- Gameplay didn't get improved on, instead they made it less realistic
In conclusion, for a Total War game, this is a disappointment, it seems like they put more time into how the game looks and then half-assed the real core of the game itself. Don't half-ass Total War. Don't.