This review was written during the release of the Horde update, around 30th of June after I had some experience with it. I've written this review of each part of the game. == Campaign == Short and to the point. Continues a few hundred years after the first game. You have two enemy factions and both are devastating and different enough. The story is you visiting the mothership, talking and taking in some lore parts and then going on missions that seemingly are impossible. Intertwined with the campaign are the co-op missions that an away-team does. You can do these missions too online with others and earn experience in the various classes. But about that later. The main campaign has very little freedom in terms of what weapons you carry or what ability you have. You're tied to Titus the entire run. That's fine and the campaign serves it's purpose and has a good ending. You have a few collectibles along the way but nothing else. A linear shooting experience that ends and leaves you to go explore the other aspects of the game: co-op and player versus player. == Co-op Mode == Mainly consists of 9 or so missions with difficulties going up from super easy to damn near impossible dice roll games. I would say the last 3 difficulties are the real normal, hard and impossible and everything before that most would avoid. The playerbase is rather small, even with cross platform, that all the limiting factors can sometimes mean you can't even find players at certain hours of the day. Even with quickplay and choosing Ruthless which I believe is the most common played difficulty mode because it's not too hard and gives the best rewards. Leveling in this mode takes forever since there's a prestige mode that goes up 4 times for each class and there are nearly 10 classes in the game. I've forgotten exactly how many, but they boil down to two categories: melee focused or ranged focused. Melee focused come with some defenses, but mainly the Bulwark class feels the best designed for later difficulties. As you get higher and higher you will challenge higher difficulties but don't be surprised that you'll never get a full combo off after a certain threashold and the game will boil down to counters, gun strikes and parries online combined with ranged combat. I've only managed to max prestige 2 classes in nearly 100 hours of game time and this is me repeating ruthless over and over again, doing whatever missions others are doing. The difficulties beyond that like Lethal are a dice roll if the mission will even be successful as the damage sustained seems to go up 4x times. == Horde mode === Newly released this comes with only two difficulties: normal and hard. Normal being insane beyond stages 15 with just the sheer number of enemies that flood your screen and hard being the absolute insane mode where only prestige 4 max'd out and optimized builds can survive. The resources you get don't feel meaningful because it's just health and ammo you have to invest it into and the others don't seem to make much of a difference. A dreadnaught is at best a distraction and gets stuck on map geometry and the other troops get tramped in seconds. I've yet to see anyone buy the buffs because of how expensive they are and they only last 5 minutes. Doesn't help that a single run rewards you with almost nothing. Same things as before and some recolors of pre-existing skins. Your average run can take up an hour of non-stop near-wipe moments only to get a single red skin of a weapon you might not even use. The experience is meaningless for those doing hard mode because they are max rank anyway and currency loses meaning quickly too, not to mention upgrade chips. In short: Horde mode does add some new challenge but it rewards you with LESS than what the campaign reruns would and doesn't allow you to be low level. If you try to level using the horde mode you're going to have a really bad time. == PvP Mode == I've only tried a few games and I can't give a review of this mode. The arenas seemed small and since it's entirely separate from the PvE campaign you pretty much have to start from level 1. I'm guessing it takes hundreds of hours to get anywhere meaningful and the PvP doesn't seem to have any real depth I don't see how this appeals to people. The same classes are there and there are many players playing it it seems but expect just a lot of non-communicating Russian players if you're from the EU trying the PvP mode out. It's a nice extension to the game and perhaps something to jump into once you're done with the base game and PvE, but I saw no real depth in it. You see someone? Shoot. Oh he has a better gun? You lose. Rinse and repeat 10-20 lives. == DLC == It's all cosmetic and it's kind of the bad greedy cosmetic type. Very expensive class-exclusive armor pieces that I wouldn't recommend buying unless you get them on a massive sale. That's about it. Even colors are locked behind DLC etc. and it's what it is. Not a fan. Not buying it unless they go down to 2€ / 2$ a piece or all together in a bundle for 10€. Just not worth my money as they add nothing to the gameplay. == Conclusion == The campaign and PvE of this game has had me entertained. The various guns and their perks combined with various classes together give enough wiggle room that you want to try a different build one more time. The armor rewards are also fancy and there's a lot to customize. It's a shame there is massive oversight in certain parts of the game, like no way to test builds in an arena and no damage numbers to see the effect of your perks. You just have no idea if one perk is better than another without locking them in and going through a 5 minute loading screen (waiting on console bros) and 20-30 minute mission just to test them out. Melee combat can also be very clunky at times. The game is 100% designed console first. Your character lunges at random enemies on PC unless you hold your WASD keys in the direction you want to go. Gun strikes and parries are also a must to learn and require skill. However especially in the horde mode with 10 big mobs on you a simple dodge will force you into a gunstrike and the animation for it twists your POV, blocking a possible other attack coming. I would even say that most deaths for veteran players come from this stupid camera angle twisting that you can't disable. You get locked into a gun strike and an enemy hits you from behind or behind your character and next thing you know you're stunlocked to death. Oh and there's plenty of dying from full health too from a surprise attack and sometimes the sound and effect that's supposed to warn you of a pending attack just forgets to trigger. So in short you get blinded by dumb camera, stunlocked by excess mobs and locked in a strike animation you didn't want to do. This can cause endless frustration for those trying to get better in the game and higher ranks. == Recommendation == The game is stunning, has a good story and enough leveling and stuff to keep you entertained at least 40-50 hours. 100 if you like to complete things and love the lore and universe. There's plenty here to collect and immerse yourself in and frankly Warhammer 40k has had some good games recently and Space Marine 2 is the "console friendly" game that even PC gamers can enjoy for a while. Neutral recommendation.
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