Bought it yesterday.
Its still an atmospheric game, but unfortunately I think it resorts to the same old tricks and cheap scares. Y' know, look in a mirror, see a phantom shadow behind you, turn around and its gone. Played a few hours so far, most of it has been trudging around linear levels with no clue as to really why, doing menial bonus collecting/finding tasks on the way.
The frame rate can be dodgy at times. Which I can' t forgive in this day and age.
The CSI bits are scarce and uninteresting. Not as good as the first game' s CSI bits. Before you' d try to find hidden clues using UV etc. Here they' re mostly blatent and you just look at them - and then it says something like " Well done!! Perfect!!!"
The controls are still cumbersome. The weapons are the same, and funny how a toilet seat can do more damage than a gun!
They' ve added a combo and special move system, which has ended up uninvolving, just having to press the trigger buttons to do, that you were hammering anyway, and giving you about 10 secs to press it. All the while you' re just moving forwards and backwards and pressing trigger, randomly getting hit by an enemy who' s facing away from you after just taking a pipe to the temple. Then motion sickness ensues. [:' (]
The only good things I can say are that the sounds are atmospheric, and there are a few upgrades you can unlock like special moves and equipment, so maybe the fighting gets more entertaining later in the game. I doubt it will.
It' s not as good as the first game, seems diluted down as if they ran out of ideas. The first one was dark and claustrophobic. Condemned 2 just seems dark for the sake of it. I was tempted to compare this series to FEAR, but its more like Manhunt. However imo - Manhunt>Condemned>Condemned 2. Certainly not a patch on the Silent Hill games.
Overall 7/10 - Worth renting if you liked the first one, but dont expect anything new.