The following goes for both Gears 5 and 4:

Fire the writers now. Seriously.

It's unbelievable how much both of these excellent campaigns (especially 5's) and all the talent that clearly goes into them get dragged down by obnoxious, permanently quippy, unfunny, Marvel-tier writing that does absolutely nothing to make me like the characters. It's like all of them constantly want to be the safest possible "funny guy" of the group, all at the exact same time. Any kind of drama instantly gets dragged down by them disregarding all possible threats with some unfunny line or variation of "well that just happened", completely deflating the crazy and life threatening crescendos of the campaigns, which are executed superbly on the gameplay and cinematic level. If the writing was good, I'd honestly be inclined to give Gears 5 a perfect rating.

Despite this I'm still giving both a solid recommendation, as for the most part you can just ignore this aspect outside of cutscenes and enjoy the craftmanship of the rest of both games, with their superb and well aging graphics as well as extremely tight Gears™️ combat. As someone who's making an entry into the series through this new trilogy, I can safely say The Coalition is doing a superb job of delivering new games to the franchise and strongly pushing the medium forward from a technical standpoint.

First played and finished during July 2023, after more than a year of post-release support.

Above anything else, Dying Light 2 is fun. It's an almost direct evolution of its predecessor in terms of gameplay, retaining and improving upon a very solid core loop of slicing zombies and hopping around rooftops. This is what Dying Light has always been all about to me, which is why I think this game deserves a solid recommendation nowadays, despite the rocky launch and the faults that remain.

Parkour is the big highlight in this iteration, making the first game seem underexploited by comparison. So many more moves have been added to spice up the flow and the city is now far better designed for uninterrupted and fun traversal that basically never gets old, especially with the addition of the paraglider and a physics-based grappling hook (as opposed to the "A to B" hook of the previous game). While this does make for a more "gamey" feeling city in contrast to the first entry, I do believe the tradeoff is very much worth it for how much more fun traversal becomes, especially once you arrive to the city center. It's just an overall joy to get around the environment and almost makes you wish for a bigger map in which to run in a straight line for hours.

Melee combat is not as much of an improvement from the first, considering how much that game nailed it, but still manages to hook. It's pretty much on the same level in terms of feel and slightly improved here and there thanks to the addition of some combat moves and more readable human enemies. Plenty of juicy sound effects, dismemberment, fountains of blood, x-rays and slow-mo's, just like the first game (except for some slightly downgraded zombie physics).

Another smaller element that was thankfully translated into this sequel is the soundtrack, which still manages to fit the new mood of the game perfectly and can really amp up parkour sequences with its hopeful and invigorating tones. It's not necessarily better or worse, it simply fits the game like a glove just like the first time around.

Where this game faulters is basically everything else. As much as I would prefer to recommend this game based on its strengths, the incredibly messy story, lack of polish and very last gen looking visuals do have to be mentioned. You'll encounter just as many misplaced props and textures as annoying characters, plot holes and filler arcs, with a fair share of buggy zombies. It's a game that still bears very obvious signs of a troubled development, which was exposed even before the games release. There's a feeling of lack of cohesion and care in many corners of the game, all of it running on a dated looking engine that can produce some serviceable visuals but really falls behind something like Remedy's Northlight or Ubisoft's Snowdrop. Fortunately, Techland still remains firmly behind what they make and they've clearly made the game much better since release, from bug fixes to system overhauls (not that this is the way products should be released but... here we are).

Even in a messy experience like this one, I think enough of what makes Dying Light special is very much retained and I don't feel like someone new to the series would have a lesser experience when trying this one first. It's simply a fun time that levels up the first game where it matters, while falling short of high praise due to its many mistakes, which can't all be fixed with patches.