It may not seem that way, but I'm a big fan of simplicity in reviews. My theory is that, unless you are doing something all hip and new-games-journalismy, the review should really let the reader know where its going in that first paragraph. Maybe not in an overly overt way, but the feeling and meter of the review should be known almost immediately.

With that said, Left 4 Dead 2 is like Left 4 Dead but with more stuff and not as good.

If you wanted to, you could just stop reading. My mission has been accomplished. You now know my opinion on the game and can extrapolate from there. Will you take my word on it, knowing my opinions on other similar games and how highly I regard the original Left 4 Dead in gaming lore? Or will you disagree, knowing that I'm kind of a pretentious dork and seem to occasionally have opinions that go against the grain of the average gamer? The odds are, you have already made your decision on what you are going to get out of this review, much like gamers already made their decisions on how they were going to feel about the sequel to Left 4 Dead.

Go towards the light.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I was never a member of those silly Left 4 Dead 2 boycott groups. It didn't really bother me too much that a sequel was coming out so soon after the original. I was a little bit bitter at the lack of official DLC available for the original, and more bitter that this would fracture the modding community and lead to less interesting maps and modifications for the original game. This was kind of tragic since the original is still an entirely up to date and fun to play game. This may be one of the few multiplayer based titles with a previous incarnation that will see continued play from me. I mean, I'm not exactly going to pop in the original Modern Warfare anytime soon, but I'll still go back to Left 4 Dead.

That wouldn't be a negative if it were because I was still so infatuated with that game that others just couldn't hold a candle to it. While that may be partly true, the reason Left 4 Dead still has an appeal is because of the flaws in L4D2 that are just too glaring to deal with. Actually, just one big flaw that hurts the game so much in my eyes that I find it hard to give it the suggestion that we all bow to it like it is a monolith ready to teach us how to use weapons.

Man From Deep Water

Before I get there though, Left 4 Dead is an improvement in many ways on the original. The graphics are roughly the same but use some newer effects and make things seem revamped and nicer. A little bit crisper, as they say. Seeing the maps in daylight is a nice change of pace and gives the engine a chance to continually flex its muscles that just seem to never get dated. The dialog between the characters is fantastic, although the characters aren't as endearing as the Fab Four in the original. Not that this really matters all that much really, but it is a source of contention in some places.

Also improved are most of the modes. Realism is great and gives those lucky few of us graced with the ability to survive this game on expert an extra challenge without making the difficulty cheap, just different. Expert takes a bit more skill and cunning now since the additional infected will really tax your traditional strategies as you pick your way across the zombie infested realms. This also applies to the new Scavenge mode and the ever entertaining Survival mode. Scavenge is doubly taxing because of the added element of dealing with human controlled infected, and Survival is made more challenging then the original simply by having the newer infected around keeping you from really latching down into one spot. Both of these improvements were things I wanted in the original game. I thought it would be made better with more “objectives” and set pieces which L4D2 has a good amount of, and that Survival would be made better with more spots to hole up in possible.

Killer Klowns From the Korn Dog Booth

Now, we get to Versus, and the reason I can't tell you to run out and buy this game. Versus is, to put simply, broken. All the good parts of the original were removed for a new, easier, luck based system. The great improvements in singleplayer just remove any semblance of strategy. Melee is overpowered, and the addition of the new infected bring the total of special infected with immediate incap ability to four. No longer is the “three hunter, one smoker” gift a rare and wonderful occurrence. A jockey, a charger, a hunter, and a smoker happens often enough to give even the worst organized teams a chance to get a quick win. When you take the new scoring system based more on distance than anything else, entirely removing any piece of strategy about when to use and keep health packs for extra points, and it just gets more frustrating. The scoring system routinely leads to frustration for good teams. You can win three or four rounds and still lose thanks to a cheap mistake in the finale, or maybe even a normal non-finale round. This would happen on rare occasions in the original, but like the ease of incap heavy combos of infected, it happens far too often for comfort in this version.

Ain't no love like gnome love.

The conspiracy theorist in me has an idea for why they changed something that wasn't broken in the first place and made it as neutered as Bob Barker's pets. This hurts me to say, and I'm sorry that I'm accusing you of this Valve, but I think this was an effort to take a step further towards the consolification of the game. This, to me, is the greatest offense a developer for the PC platform can ever make. All of the changes that I see in Versus mode scream “make this easier for people on Xbox Live, and damn the PC enthusiasts that got us here” much the same way the inexplicable decisions Infinity Ward made for Modern Warfare 2 were. To me, the PC will always be the superior gaming system. The fact that newer consoles are just becoming more and more like computers is proof of this. But the Xbox Live experience for Left 4 Dead Classic was always lacking. On the PC, a well organized team could stomp a few rounds of pubbers, but eventually they would meet another well organized team and have a few good matches. On Xbox, that seemed to never happen. A well organized team could destroy random groups all day long. Making luck and distance more of a modifier than skill and strategy balances that by giving everyone a chance to win.

So, that right there is why I can't give Left 4 Dead 2 the same glorious hyperbole that I did for its predecessor. Everything else is great, and the game is still fun, but Versus was always the brains and butter of this game for me. With it in such a lacking state, this game can only be seen to me as a supplement to the original and nothing more despite its seemingly large amount of improvements.

Sorry Valve, I still love you though.