As a response to Gamespot's overcritical Review... Mercs 2 is just as fun as the first!
The addition of heli-transport and GPS modernize it enough to make it bearable, and trust me traveling does not get nearly as bad as in GTA II-San Andreas which were all great games but took forever to get anywhere. So it's kinda odd to hear ppl complain so much about that.. maybe they are too spoiled by GTA IV's taxi function?
People should not be playing Mercs 2 expecting a realistic shooter, b/c this game is NOT THAT. The Mercs universe, since the first one, has its own rules which include the slowwwww bullet firing. The point of this is that Mercs 2 isn't about shooting at all, it's about BLOWING STUFF UP!! So of course bullets will be weak, because what you really need to watch out for are grenades, the soldiers with rocket launchers, and the many heavily armed vehicles in the game's world.
Granted, the story isn't great, but the voice acting is good - there just isn't enough of it. The addition of cutscenes are pretty cool though - who didn't laugh when Chris Jacobs got shot in the rear end? Again, this game is about destruction, and the many airstrikes, bombs, artillery, vehicles, etc are the real stars of the show, and as you progress, you get to unlock a multitude of them!
Yes, there are glitches here and there, but they aren't so apparent that you will be disgusted with the game. In fact, I was more irritated with Mass Effect's massive slowdowns than any kind of glitch in Merc 2.
This is essentially Mercs 1 with better driving gameplay, better graphics, and many more goodies to blow stuff up with. As a fan of the first game, this was just what I was hoping for. Sure, Pandemic could have spent a couple more months polishing out the slight blemishes, but Mercs 2 is a solid action game in which you'll have tons of fun. If you're not ready to plunk down $65.01 on this, then do yourself a favor and pick up Mercs 1 for $5-10, maybe even cheaper since it was not a well-known game, and you'll be surprised how playable it is even though it's a last generation game.