Recente recensies door crashing out = chimping out

The base game is great right up until the point where you get to Nova Prospekt; after that point, it starts getting more difficult to finish the game. That's not to say it's bad at and after that point, but rather that I wish I was back in Ravenholm instead of leading NPCs through a city where they will inevitably fail to pathfind to me. Thankfully, the ending chapters in the Citadel make completing a playthrough worth it, if only just to mess around with the super gravity gun for a bit.
Episode 1 is just great - no complaints with this one. Very underrated in my opinion.
Episode 2 is great up until the strider defense section. It isn't hard to do, but it just breaks so much from what Half-Life gameplay is supposed to be that I either end playthroughs at this point or just skip it. The antlion tunnels are still one of my favorite environments in any game.
It isn't a flawless game like some people seem to believe, but it's certainly a good one.

The game was too difficult and frankly sucked.

The first 3 levels are pretty good, the 4th level sucks, the 5th level has a cool concept but is ultimately underutilized, the 6th level sucks, and the last level is pretty good again. If you don't have friends, don't play this as you won't have nearly as much fun as you could. Add some monsters to the 4th and 6th levels and polish up the 5th level and the game would be good to go. Runs surprisingly well.

This would be a solid followup to the first game but there are three things holding it back:
1. This is yet another game that needs to have it's own launcher... why? Just launch the game; there is no reason why you need to have a separate launcher for it. Automatically losing points just for that.
2. The main gameplay loop is effectively endless mode repeated across the same handful of levels. The only variation is in what kinds of red guys are going to spawn with which weapons to confront you on whatever part of the map you happen to spawn on. The first game's approach, where the story levels were each unique and had X number of guys to kill, was way better, both for gameplay and storytelling.
3. The ending where you need to wait 2 and a half hours to play the game again. I've seen from other reviews it was originally 8 hours and the plan was to have it be 24 hours, and I truly don't get why anyone thought that was a good idea. Yeah, I get it, it's meta-commentary, but just because that's what it's going for doesn't mean it was a good idea to implement it. Actually, the whole message the game is going for just sucks frankly.

If you enjoyed the combat of Superhot, you'll probably enjoy the game because that core aspect is still here. If you didn't like it, don't get this.

Way too difficult and punishing, frankly too hard for anyone who isn't a masochist. Also runs really bad and for some reason is 7 GB despite being made like 2 decades ago. I'll be sticking to good puzzle games like Guess Who, thank you very much.

The game is okay but it hasn't aged well in terms of stability. Immediately as I started playing I was getting stutters and crashes, which had to be fixed with a mod and by turning all of the graphics options down, which shouldn't be necessary for a game as old as this. There's also weird glitches that consistently happen: zombies don't die when charged into with the boat, guns automatically firing if you have them out when fast traveling, picking up anything resets your reload, and so on.
Beyond this, the game is still incredibly grindy, especially if you're trying to get to level 70 and don't have a character to import. Story is meh, voice acting is bad, animations for humans are bad, and the melee combat, while satisfying, throws you off if you've been trained on Source melee. If you liked the original Dead Island, you'll probably enjoy this. Personally, I miss running around with modded weapons on the Xbox 360 release of the original Dead Island.

It's okay. The music is probably the best part of it, but that's not a surprise since Chris always does a great job in that department.
The newly added maps are fine, not absolutely terrible but not anything crazy, though the new stage 5 is pretty nice. My biggest complaint with them is that they all use the same color scheme or browns, greens, and grays, which isn't really good. Prime Meridian is just kind of lame and only exists as a movement check, which makes it a breeze for some characters but miserable for those lacking mobility items or abilities.
Concerning the newly added characters: Seeker is fine, though her damage feels somewhat lackluster. I personally enjoy playing False Son, even though I've seen complaints that he's just a discount Paladin mod or whatever. Chef is absolutely terrible, I don't know what they were thinking when they designed him, but it just doesn't work. Even with Tonic, he still struggles to deal with singular enemies and bosses. I've been told the modded version of Chef is much better.
The majority of items added with this update just suck. Too many of them rely on you getting hit, and anyone who has played the game for longer than 30 minutes can tell you that getting hit is the last thing you want to do in this game, so they just end up functioning as scrapper fuel. A few of the legendary items are good, the new lunar item is terrible, and the new equipment is just a nice-to-have should you find yourself needing it.
The new enemies are fine, though fighting a horde of Childs (Children?) ends up being annoying when they keep teleporting away from you. The new elite types are bad, especially the Twisted type. Whoever thought that adding reflect damage, which can hit you from anywhere on the map, in a game where the majority of your damage comes from proc chains should be fired. I hope to see this elite type nerfed massively, if not removed outright.
Finally, the False Son himself. Not a terrible fight, but it isn't as good as Mithrix. The fact that you can fight him so early into your run is pretty neat.

If you really want this DLC, you should probably buy it on sale. Most of the big bugs that have been reported seem to be fixed, and hopefully the remaining ones will be fixed soon.

SkibidiGODS WON
Aryans WON
Zoomers WON
TMDCtrannies LOST
MDxisters LOST

It's okay. It isn't as good as BFBB - BFBB has stronger world design, better music, better enemies, better dialogue, etc. - but this game has it's own charm. You only get to play as Spongebob, but Patrick will follow you around and provide you with help as you play the game. If you enjoyed the BFBB remake, you might like this. Buy it on sale.

This is one of those games where if Steam had an option to choose a "Mixed" rating, then I would be rating the game as mixed.

I compare it to Left 4 Dead often when I describe it to people who are interested in the game. The two games are similar in some aspects:
- Both are horde shooters, where you progress through a level and have one or two midway events before a final event. In Darktide's case, that's your typical mission, while in Left 4 Dead, you experience this over a campaign.
- Both have incredibly solid gameplay loops. It's very easy to sink hundreds of hours into both games. Darktide plays faster than Left 4 Dead does, while Left 4 Dead is easier to get into if you haven't played horde shooters before.
- Both have very satisfying gunplay. On the melee side, Darktide has the better melee system, but Left 4 Dead's melee system is perfect for the pace of that game.
- Both have a cast of memorable characters. Left 4 Dead obviously excels here, but Darktide's characters each have their distinct personalities which is supported by the ability to customize your character.
- Both have a community of both casual and more competitive players - which also means they have communities of idiots. Try playing a match of versus and/or a match of quickplay auric and you'll see what I mean.

So, why does Left 4 Dead still get played by tens of thousands of people to this day while Darktide struggles to maintain a playerbase in the thousands? There's a multitude of reasons.
- The crafting system as it exists now is absolutely terrible and only rewards those who put in an exorbitant amount of time into the game - you may get your perfect weapon after a few hours if you're lucky, or you'll still be trying to get it after 100 hours. No longer the case after the Itemization update.
- The quality of missions really varies on the map you're playing. This may be subjective, but I don't find a lot of Darktide's maps memorable or interesting compared to Left 4 Dead's.
- Some weapons remain way too strong in the current day, like the plasma gun and the knife, while things like the shotguns are in drastic need of buffs. Not everything needs to be good, but it at least needs to be usable. Even the worst weapons in Left 4 Dead are usable on expert difficulty.
- Darktide struggles with sound issues, both in terms of bugs and in terms of poor sound design. For the longest time, trappers were the epitome of this, but the game today still struggles with things like poxbursters not making sounds when they should.
- Despite the rework, penances still aren't in a good spot - some of them are ridiculously grindy for the reward you get out of doing them, namely the mission related penances.
- Crossplay exists and cannot be opted out of. Enjoy playing with Xbots.
- Performance can be an issue. You need a fairly good setup to keep the game at least at 60 FPS on low settings, and even then you may still have frame drops.
- Above all else, Fatshark has repeatedly dropped the ball on development. From unkept promises related to the launch to introducing new weapons without fixing issues the game has, it's clear that something at Fatshark isn't working.

It's still a fun game overall, but temper your expectations that any of the game's issues will ever be fixed.