If you have been following the gaming news as of late, everyone has been talking about Space Marine 2. I picked it up about two weeks ago, since I am a big fan of the world building. I beat the game last week so, let's talk a little bit about my thoughts.
Overall, I had a decent time with this game, but I am not quite sure it lived up to the hype that I am seeing online about it "harkening back to an older time in gaming". The campaign was probably 15 hours or so for me to beat. It was fine and a decent linear romp, but if I am being honest, it felt very much like a less rushed Warhammer Vermintide, with just a little bit more ammo.
The waves of enemies that are thrown on screen at you are cool the first couple of times they happen, and the opening chapter sets a nice tone for the game. By the 30th time it happens though, I just sort of got bored with it. I guess that sorta goes for the combat in general for me as well. Executing a well timed counter results in a cool cinematic, but when you see it for the 60th time, it doesn't continue to impress. I also found the combat a bit frustrating at time because the armor/health management and recovery is not satisfying as it should be. Too often I found myself overwhelmed with crowd control, while simultaneously getting rocked by a ranged attack.
Bigger enemies just took way too much to whittle down before you could get the "execute" option and the returned armor/health almost never made up for the damage you took to get in close enough to melee them.
I also found the game surpassingly devoid of combat puzzles through the campaign. There were a couple of instances of holding some zones to open a gate, and one fun instance in the PvE multiplayer where you had to enter some glyphs to attack a drake, but that was kinda it. And also, if this was such a throw back feeling game, where was the obligatory vehicular run and gun sequence?
Overall I felt everything just kinda felt boring and samey at the end and even when the Chaos Marines finally showed up, their tactics and enemy types were almost exactly the same as the Tyranid. I'll leave my final single player thoughts with the fact that I also kinda hated the main character you played as. He is a terrible commander, and that would be fine if not for the fact that they try to redeem him with this camaraderie ideal right at the end of the game. I hated Titus and there were multiple times in the game where he chewed his squad out for making poor choices, but then he deliberately would not divulge mission critical information to them.
Multiplayer also leaves me really wanting. The PvE chapters are fun, and the concept of having you play as the "B Team" in parallel to the main story mission is a brilliant idea. However, they still have that Vermintide feel to them for me, and out of the maybe dozen sessions I've played I have yet to matchmake with a full party. PvP also is just middling. While it does bring back a Gears of War sort of feel, I don't think I'm fully grasping the combat translation from single player to the multi-player. For example, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to be effective with melee combat in PvP and similarly, does the counter/parry system work at all? I haven't seen it trigger at any point. I believe there are only three or four maps too. On top of all of that the load out customization appears to be different between multiplayer environments? Why?
Overall, fun game, but I don't think I got a fully $70 worth out of it.