L4D2 is one of my most-played games, and something I come back to all the time with my Sunday night group. I can't claim mastery since we basically only play on Easy or Normal, but I'm at least very, very, very, very, very familiar with the core maps. It tends to be my Sunday night group's gold standard for games, and it's the title we come back to more often than anything else.

Admittedly, I don't think there's much more the game has to offer for me, at least from a vanilla experience. I'll play it with friends and family, because I like spending time with friends and family, but I'd generally be happier playing something else. Not an indictment on L4D2 (goodness knows I haven't played everything the game has to offer), just where I'm at.

But it's my group's gold standard for a reason. Sometimes we just need a simple, arcade-y co-op experience to jump into, and L4D2 has us covered. L4D2 isn't without strategy, far from it, and the randomization element of the horde encounters means there's generally a different angle to approach each run of a map. I like a lot of what L4D2 offers over the original game mechanically: I am basically useless if my secondary weapon is a handgun instead of a melee weapon, crescendo events are a lot more dynamic and varied compared to the first game, the new Special Infected are... annoying, but they're doing their job of keeping you on your toes... and I like all of the new maps, especially Hard Rain. I also like the cast and Southern setting way more than the first game's New England offerings, but that's more down to taste.