Very confused by these reviews not liking the final boss, the vastly superior encounter to several of the TAG enemy arenas that limit your options. That fucking double Marauder encounter with Screechers everywhere is like 100 times worse.

The weaknesses of the main game demons were usually just a suggestion; you could still find whatever other way to kill any given demon worked for you, and that's part of what made the combat sandbox so fun to mix things up with. Spirits, Riot Soldiers, Cursed Prowlers if they touch you, TAG demons of this ilk spit in the face of your flexibility. Each one typically won't take you much longer to dispatch than any other demon (besides spirit-possessed super heavies, grrr) so they only bring the experience down a little, but they are indeed a thorn in the DLC's side. Still plenty of fun otherwise. Especially the Dark Lord. Seriously you guys, he is so fun to fight, you guys just don't get it.

Part 1 is fucking dreadful and Part 2 is the best part of the entire Doom Eternal game. What a bipolar experience.

TAG Part 2 (5 stars) -

The Ancient Gods Part 2 is the best experience in the Doom Eternal campaign. The level design and gameplay feel highly rewarding and very tight. I was quite weary of the Cyber Baron, Screecher Buffs and Meat Hook puzzles given my TAG 1 experience. But all were done so well. TAG 2 really felt like it was designed by a different team from top to bottom.

TAG 2 adds the Sentinel Hammer (TAG 1 got rid of the Crucible entirely). It does damage and stuns everyone in an AoE. It's phenomenally fun. It integrates perfectly with glory kills and blood punch and it speeds up the game tremendously. Doom Guy is traipsing to and fro off monkey bars and portals landing blows that synchronize with one another phenomenally. Dropping armor pips and health pips as well as ammo and sentinel hammer recharges. Blood Punch drops. TAG 2 makes you work for it but when you get it clicking it feels so god damn seamless.

Seriously. TAG 2 is wildly fun combat experience. While I started the DLC on Hurt Me, Plenty by the time I got to the first Escalation Encounter (new TAG 2 content similar to Secret Encounters from the base game) halfway through the opening mission I turned the difficulty up to Nightmare. I wanted the challenge. And it didn't disappoint. The game gave me new tools to tackle challenges and it didn't send waves of enemies in combinations that were meant to give you an aneurysm. Enemies could be tackled in ways that were harmonious. Blood Punch waves of Pinkies and Glory Kill wayward Imps in the pack to get Sentinel Hammer charges that you could blast Pain Elementals with. Freezing them long enough for you to unload shotgun blasts that kill them and drop more ammo or set up more glory kills for more Blood Punches for more Sentinel Hammers, rinse and repeat.

Every level provided me with hordes of demons that I could smash my way through in ways that allowed me to collect the resources to continue smashing waves. Every skill, kill and stun gave me the tools to perform another needed maneuver to kill another enemy type in the arena. Just so snappy and rewarding the entire time through. The Escalation Encounters were super cool and upgraded you hammer adding to your toolbox and providing a notable feeling of progression through the game.

The jumping puzzles were better designed and the meat hook was fun to use, the physics feeling rewarding when combined with the in-air-control rune. The puzzles were better marked and it was clearer how to navigate them. I also found that I had less trouble ledge grabbing and less trouble with false glory kills that I had in both the base campaign and TAG 1 (though it did happen once or twice with the final boss).

The final parts of the DLC felt so good. The cutscene when you enter Immora felt amazing and huge in scope. So freaking cool to watch. Though I did wish we got better/clearer in story explanations for how/why it was happening and I do wish I got to fight the Titan. Still it was a lot of fun and the Dark Lord boss fight was tense and rewarding. A little same-y by the end, beating the Dark Lord on Nightmare was a significant challenge and I let out an audible yell of primal joy when I finally finished him. It felt so damn good.

All the way through the TAG 2 experience was the best Doom Eternal has to offer and I desperately wish more of the entire gameplay experience had been designed this way. The story traverses too many plot points too quickly and the confusing story doesn't get any clearer without significant investment from the user (collecting and then reading the codex and just ruminating on the information you're given). But that's a problem that plagues the entire series. In any case the gameplay in TAG 2 is so snappy and fast paced and dopamine rewarding that I'm very sad it was so short and that the rest of the game (TAG 1 and base campaign) didn't play this way.

In fact TAG 2 is so good that it's worth playing through how awful TAG 1 was. Just to get there. Sure you can skip TAG 1 but I think you have to buy it anyway. So you might as well just play it. TAG 2 is really, really good.