Recent reviews by dd2

Not too convinced about this one yet. Maybe it'll end up being a lot better than 4 but at the moment, it feels near identical, and in particular in terms of how snappy the UI is (not very) - the differences between 4e and 5e gameplay don't really make up for the difference in expansions available - even without the tiles and cards, the range of characters is kinda meh.
There's a lot of things that have stayed the same that really should have improved, and there's a lot of things that have just become worse (where's the text on cards???). UI changes are generally nice, but things like stats are just harder to read than in 4.

kinda sick for a lil indie project

lmao the game just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ends when you think it's just getting started?
The whole story quest line is just running about city to city (some with no fast travel options, or limited), smashing A through ♥♥♥♥ dialogue - you fight a couple of cool things and then you realise those are the ONLY things in the game. Thief is overtuned but thief gameplay amounts to smashing X at a monster's legs. Warrior is cool but just feels like a worse MH GS, when really this shouldn't feel like MH at all. The others give a kinda similar vibe to DD1 at least.
I'm told this is how DD was before DDDA but this is over 10 years later, you'd think they would have put more into the game that has such a following because of DA, not DD1.

The game improves upon the great formula from the previous HITMAN game by adding in some nice neat features, such as NPCs being able to see you in the mirror, NPCs treating you as a guard, NPCs noticing missing guards, and other small changes.
While these are good additions, these feel like the only additions to the game. When HITMAN first launched, they were intent on providing season content and episodes. That is very much what HITMAN 2 feels like. A second season of the previous game. This is what an expansion to the first game should have been, not a £45 standalone sequel.

On top of this, the new mission designs are not nearly as involved or interesting as the previous game's. Much of the challenging aspect of the previous game no longer exists. It's very very easy to get Silent Assassin on every single one of the new levels.

The game also adds the idea of "Mission Stories" - handheld trips through assassinations. It even marks out key points in your route through it - and this is with the information being "minimal". These "Mission Stories" are independent of the actual end goal, and so if you end up at the same conclusion as one of these stories but took a different path, you do not get credit for the story. I'm not one to really care, but since unlocks are locked behind XP, and Mission Stories are XP, it's actually incredibly annoying.

The game is full of bugs on launch. Often times loading from a save will just hang indefinitely. The foliage concealment mechanics cause diaglogue loops in NPCs, and sometimes causing them to completely bug out and just become stuck. NPCs will just hover above objects randomly (sometimes happened in the previous game too). Also experienced an issue where a target came back to life after I had killed him. Comical but not a sign of a £45 game.

The audio on the game is maybe one of the most underwhelming parts. The new audio is massively lacking, and very sparse, and the majority of the tracks are taken from the previous game. When you have a series with such an iconic soundtrack, by such an iconic composer, and you mess it up once, it's bad, but twice in a row, and only getting worse? Again, not a £45 game.

Finally, the game does not look good. There appears to be some strange filter removing colour from the game. This becomes very obvious when playing the legacy levels. The bloom levels are also ridiculously high, and frequently blinding. This looks very unpleasant visually.

I cannot recommend this game at any price point above £20 for all the content ("Gold Edition").

We purchased this as a group to co-op on. I'm not particularly interested in the single-player so perhaps this isn't the most widely applicable review, but it is absolutely unplayable in its current state. It's incredibly unpolished. There are basic things that just haven't been resolved from beta. You spend more time in loading screens than playing the game.

Brain exploded 16/10