This game was one of the most pleasant surprises in my whole Steam library. I enjoyed Darksiders 1, but I was also ready to be done with it when I finished its campaign. A short while later, I install and start up Darksiders 2 to see how it compared, and I was blown away.

Immediately you notice many familiar elements from Darksiders 1 - the setting, the art style, the Zelda-ish combat and puzzles. However, most of these (except the puzzles) are just done better in the sequel - the art has much more color and beautiful designs, Jesper Kyd weaves a masterful soundtrack that is up with my favorites in gaming history, the voice acting has been raised at least half a notch across the board, the climbing/parkour elements are better, the bosses are bigger, and the fighting is so, so fast and tons of fun.

The combat lends itself well to frantic button-mashing if you prefer, but there is also plenty of depth to build multiple fighting styles. The RPG-lite elements of item collecting, item crafting, and skill trees were simple enough to be quickly understood but had enough depth to allow you investigate various builds and make powerful combinations.

The game sprawls across several large areas with plenty of sidequests and collectibles, as well as a fighting Arena (which I did not complete), so there is easily over 50 hours of content in this game if you are enjoying it, but you could also probably beat the game in 25 hours or less if you bullrush it. I think this is a fantastic content value, especially since I thoroughly enjoyed the many hours I spent with Darksiders 2.

There are a few negatives - the puzzles are not that difficult, and the story is...what it is. It's an interesting setting in a teen edgelord sorta way, but the story is fairly predictable, but you really shouldn't play this game for the story anyways, it's too much fun in the combat and exploring the world. There can be a fair amount of backtracking if you want to do all the sidequests and collectibles, but if you are methodical about talking to people and looking for things your first go-thru of places and dungeons you can greatly alleviate the backtracking.

I can thoroughly recommend this game to anyone who likes 3rd-person action-adventure games, it's a ton of fun in a great setting and atmosphere with plenty of content. 8.75/10