Here's Chris's post BTW so that you don't need two windows open to see what I'm responding to:
Bottom line: I'll get it eventually, but it's not worth $60. I know it's a bit ridiculous to say that from a demo, but all of Valve's insistence that the game has enough new stuff in it is just garbage. They are nice additions, but $30 is the price I'd put it.
As for the actual gameplay, firstly, I'm not sure how I feel about swapping pistols with melee weapons. If you can get a machette or something, it works well enough. However, I always wind up taking damage when I go in wielding the damn thing. It's not as useful as a pistol which allows you to take potshots from a distance. What's more is I don't recall stumbling upon a second pistol at all in the first two maps of the campaign. Melee weapons were everywhere, but ammunition, pipe bombs and molotovs were about as rare as ever. In fact, it felt like there were less of them, but maybe because there are more zombies and special infected and melee weapons that never run out of ammo all over the place.
The Jockey is a hunter that allows you to keep moving, albeit helplessly. The Charger is lame as you can probably dodge his initial attack. The Spitter may nail you once, but a second time is rare. She also looks absolutely retarded. The witch roaming around is interesting, though.
The game's tone has changed. It no longer feels horror. It feels more Dead Rising than anything. In some ways the different type of environments are nice, but it doesn't capture any sense of dread. It feels more like a run and gun, which is precisely what Left 4 Dead is not supposed to be.
Most of the time special infected spawned well enough in the distance for you to see.
There are zombies in bullet proof riot gear on occasion. They are easy to deal with. If you lack a melee weapon, just use your default melee to knock them back. When they expose their backs, shoot them up. It's not hard.
A.I. somehow seems dumber. Nick stood right in a pool of acid and took damage. No effort to move on his part at all. Rochelle ran to the wrong side of an open safe house door (in other words, into the wall on the door's left instead of into the doorway), backed up, ran into the wall again, and repeated. Over and over.
The only plus side is they don't heal themselves as soon as they hit 50 health. They wait a bit longer. None of them offered to heal me though. They act much more like human players in that regard.
I'll buy the game at some point, but I don't even know if I want to ask for it for Christmas as that means $60 will be spent on a game that ought to be $30. Now that I've pretty much decided to go with ODST and Assassin's Creed for that GameStop deal, I think to myself "maybe I should consider L4D2...". But honestly, the changes in ODST are much more interesting to me than the changes in L4D2 and Assassin's Creed 2 is going to have a lot of changes made. Not to mention both of those games also have a story to them.
My proposal, honestly, is DO NOT BUY Left 4 Dead 2 until they OFFICIALLY drop the price. Chances are a shit ton of people will go and buy it anyway, but I think as few as possible should until Valve recognizes that it's not worth $60.
In short I agree, it's very reminiscent of Rainbow Six Vegas 2 to be honest because not only does it feel like a stand-alone expansion but it even seems to have taken a step back in some regards. Like Chris I feel awkward saying, flat out, that it's simply not worth $60 when the only thing I'm going by is the demo but ultimately I just can't come to any other conclusion. Now you may say that's possibly accurate for people who played the original to death but what about people who didn't play the first, is L4D2 worth $60? Honestly I can't say with a straight face that those individuals wouldn't be better served spending $30 on the original instead although it's true they'd probably find more folks to play with if they get part 2.
Anyways, on to the specifics.
Melee Weapons:
Like Chris said, the emphasis has clearly switched to melee weapons, they are positively everywhere. Unfortunately at least from the 3-4 different ones you can use in the demo they aren't effective enough to replace guns, even pistols. I can't imagine a chainsaw or any others being much more effective either, after all, they're all pretty much 1 hit kill weapons on regular zombies as it is so the only increase in damage you'd see is against special infected in which case getting close to the enemy isn't a good idea to begin with. Ultimately, I played with them a few times and quickly went back to what works, guns. It appears that melee weapons in L4D2 are suffering from the ever so common shooter syndrome of worthless novelty weapons. Unfortunately they are, at least in the demo, so common that I worry they may have been over emphasized by a developer that didn't realize their impractical nature thus resulting in some serious balance issues.
Pistols:
Chris noted the rarity of finding the 'second pistol' around the environment, something that was an essential tool in surviving the harder difficulties of the original. Well, I did see one once, near the midway point of the first section, however beyond that I too never saw one lying around whereas they were far more prevalent in L4D1. After starting another game in single player though I realized why this was. When the AI picked up the lone melee weapon amongst the starting gear it dropped it's pistol, allowing me to have dual pistols the entire time. So apparently, barring the rare find, the best/only way to get dual pistols to to dupe one of your sucker friends into wasting their time with a melee weapon. Yay teamwork!
Other weapons and Ammo:
I'm pretty sure I never saw an ammo pile once in the entire demo barring inside the safehouses whereas in L4D1 there was usually at least 1 midway per section. The reason for this is the fact that guns are littered all over the place, no more searching for that gun cabinet in the abandoned farmhouse, no, now every home, business and alley in the city has an arsenal of exotic weapons for you to choose from. It's certainly less strategic and 'survival horrorish' than the original but I guess I can't complain too much about it being 'unrealistic'. As for the new guns, they're some of the few new additions I actually do like. The inclusion of a Spas-12 alone brings a smile to my face even though it took 6+ plays of the demo to see it. The new semi-auto sniper is badass too, as well as the AK47.
Special Infected:
Like Chris I'm not impressed with the new special infected. In fact, I go one step farther and say I pretty much hate them. The original three annoyed me at times too, no doubt, but I felt they were well balanced and essential to the experience. The new ones not only turn up the annoyance dial but they seem pointless and only throw the games balance into question. In the original you always had to worry about the situations where you got too far apart because if you hadn't JUST killed a special infected you knew they were out there, somewhere. If you strayed too far from the group you could get pinned while the teammate who comes to save you gets nabbed by a smoker and the other two get boomed on creating a perfect "The infected just teamworked you to death".
With three new specials I never saw more than three at a time but what could the devs do in this situation? If they threw all six at you at once it'd be horribly cheap and unbalanced but due to the necessary 'randomizer' in place for the infected you will more often than not get less fatal combinations. Additionally, there's less fear in going off on your own because instead of the imminent threat of a smoker or hunter you're just as likely to encounter a spitter or charger which are simple enough to dispatch alone. Ultimately, less is more in this case as doubling the special infected roster has only created balance issues. I do however thoroughly approve of the moving witch idea. Not only does it make her more of a serious threat but it also evades those annoying L4D1 issues where she spawned in a narrow passage and couldn't be avoided (especially by the AI)...speaking of which.
AI:
I definitely don't agree that they are somehow dumber as I contest that such a thing is 100% impossible, however I don't think they've really improved beyond perhaps the use of healthpacks (they seem a little less wasteful this time). They still have an affinity for getting in front of your shots, they still stand and take damage needlessly, they still seem incapable of crouching or getting their back to a wall when a horde is incoming and they still don't seem to react well to certain special infected. They also still don't touch explosives although that's probably a blessing.
Characters:
I'm pretty firm in my opinion that the original four where considerably better characters although I'm willing to admit some of that may be because I've grown attached to the originals and are biased against the new ones. Ellis is just stereotyped to a science, Rochelle is just loud and obnoxious and Nick has ZERO personality. Coach is the only one with a personality that isn't an annoying one but I can't say I like him near as much as the original four. In addition is the voice acting which incomprehensibly has taken a step back. It makes no sense that a new concept game with no brand awareness gets top notch voice acting and it's high profile sequel gets the office janitorial staff.
Tone:
Again I agree that, at least based on the demo stages, the games tone seems to have changed. Being alone no longer seems as impossible, the increased frequency of weapons and infinite ammo melee weapons removes a lot of strategy and the pacing just feels more, as Chris stated, 'Run and Gun'. As few and minor as the changes in L4D2 are I'm not convinced they won't have a more dramatic negative impact than a positive one.
Conclusion:
Tone, pacing and balance have all been thrown into question because of the new design choices; Melee weapons are a novelty, the new characters and the new specials pale in comparison...but hey, at least the new guns are awesome and we get to play new maps! In other words, give me the new weapons and stages as DLC for L4D1 priced at $30 instead of $60 and I'm a happy camper. I can't help but agree with all the people hating on Valve for milking the franchise because that's pretty much exactly what's happened here. The only GOOD additions are DLC caliber stuff that would have fit in fine with the original while everything else is clearly stuff they threw together so they could say "Hey, look, it's not just DLC, it's a full sequel...seriously...look at all this new stuff.........please."
Anyways, I'm usually up for making my opinion know with my wallet but sadly I've come to a few conclusions that contradict that ideal:
A) There's NOTHING else coming out, especially in terms of MP, on any platform for the foreseeable future I'm even slightly interested in. So I either bite my tongue and buy something that's overpriced or I keep playing the stuff I've played to death and/or just plain lose out on MP gaming until God knows when.
B) I've given up on the ideal of making a statement with my wallet. I'm in a market that laps up drivel every which way and the whole industry is going in the tank as far as I'm concerned. So I may as well squeeze what little enjoyment I can out of it before I just drop it altogether.
On top of that I found a two year old gift card that, if it's still good, would chip that price down to something more in line with what it's worth. So if I feel like it I may go pick it up today and if I do I'll post further impressions on the final product.
