This game is not for everyone. For fans of the first, it's a completely separate beast, keeping only the difficulty and the art style. However, to me, this game has too much going for it to make me want to rage quit. While there are some aspects done better in the first game, the combat has much more to do. New ways to play with heroes like the paths and the affinity system make it much more interesting and engaging. The music, just like the first, is top notch, and a lot of the tracks are even better than ones in the first. The biggest drawback to many people is the apparent difficulty, with how some situations feel absolutely unbeatable, and the complete shift into a roguelike (along with features gone from the first game like the town management and permanently losing heroes forever). I've never had a problem with a lot of these complaints though, and to me, this game is everything I loved about the first game but better.

Darkest Dungeon 1 is a titan of a game and probably the closest a game will get to being perfect. There is no way to make a sequel to that game without either:

A) Repeating what you already did and getting compared directly to the 1st one (an impossible standard)
B) Going in a completely new direction and picking and choosing what you take from the 1st game (and people being mad that it's different)

DD2 goes in a new direction and loses a lot of what the first game had because of it, and that's ok because DD1 still exists and you can go play it. It follows a more modern "roguelike" format and progression system which emphasizes experimentation and removes a lot of the longer dread and stress than DD1 had.

My only real issue with the game is that I don't know if the change, which removed a lot of what made the 1st one special, added enough of its own sauce to really stand out as a complete game - but that may change as I continue playing or from person to person.

The devs tried something completely new with Darkest Dungeon 2, which is a very good thing. Unfortunately, if you are a monkeybrain like myself who simply wanted 'more of the same', this game doesn't really hit the dopamine receptors.
They scrapped the roguelike element of managing a town and replaced it with a "skill tree" looking thing.
Not all characters from DD1 made it into DD2, namely the fan favourite Crusader. Some characters are completely different from DD1, which is also a bummer for me (namely Bounty Hunter and Flaggelant).
This game feels a lot less grindy, and more episodic, if that makes sense. It's more like you're doing a campaign, where you build a team to fight a boss and that's it.
In DD1, you would sometimes go out for missions just to gather resources - in DD2 you don't really have that.
Progression feels dumbed down, and there's no 'levelling characters' anymore. You either get the upgraded skill or you don't.
The game is also a lot more consistent than DD1, which should be a good thing! Yet, in practice, this consistency means nothing feels special anymore. It also dumbs down the team building aspect.
It was still fun to play, and I imagine someone who was frustrated with DD1's RNG system or grinding could heavily appreciate this game, but these two games are nothing alike in practice.
If you loved DD1, you could give this game a shot, but beware it is very very different.

This write-up will consider only the base-game.

A game this good, a game this good so often talked about, a game this good in a nigh-extinct manner, cannot help but attract imprecise praise. By some, New Vegas is a refreshing turn away from the omni-simplistic Bethesda present to the morally, mechanically complex Interplay past. My most controversial take is as follows. This line of thinking dramatically underappreciates the skeleton of Fallout 3: the VATS, the shooting, the boneless physics, the ability to walk and crab-walk any direction in the Mojave. These qualities, continuing onwards from Fallout 3, contribute to the sense of freedom just as much as all the items in that now-familiar list, of "How Obsidian Showed Bethesda What's What": deeper companions, the factions, the endearing world, the threshold skill checks, that one Vault where the dwellers were forced to kill each other, being able to throw the loser NCR general off the Hoover Dam.

That sense of freedom to define the self and the world is why many fans regard New Vegas so highly. Over 3, 4, 76 for sure, but as those people will more cautiously insinuate, over the originals 1 and 2 as well. I am sympathetic. I like Obsidian and sometimes Bethesda. And to have their such genre-defining idiosyncrasies come together remains a mysteriously unsung miracle. But prior to the intervention of the DLCs, the true revelation of Avellone and Obsidian's narrative colors, many ways the true story of New Vegas and the grand conclusion to all of Fallout, New Vegas as is lacks a particular intensity, a particular focus.

Fallout 2 suffered much the same way. But consider some of its scenes in order. That game starts with the gunning down of the dwellers by the Enclave soldiers more power armor than people. We then endure an interminable procession of games forum in-jokes that remind us more of the annoying present than the fearsome future. But at is final moments we are ambushed. We see one of those power armor reveal its green flesh, fanatic voice, and broken mind: the infertile monster-cub of the wasteland reared in Old World prejudice, resistant to diplomacy that served you unfailingly for both games. And after this immovable beast is torn to shreds by the last hurrah of turrets and turn-based combat, its torso crawls towards you, much like the mutilated corpse of the overseer in the previous game tried to crawl back to his home, gunned down by your ancestor who had been betrayed by the very ones for whom he given it all. This irradiation of the soul, of Frank Horrigan, the United States, your characters, the world in the way, persists as a lingering image over your rescued tribe, over the possibility of renewal, right alongside some Monty Python reference. Even as some things change, other things - other things never change.

For the ingenuity of its parts, of both Obsidian and Bethesda make, I cannot place New Vegas behind Fallout 2. But that sense of soul and its ambiguous destiny are what is missing in the base game of New Vegas, and it is to me the surest sign of the rushed development cycle. The options are there on the grand scale: old democracy, old fascism, old despotism, maybe a new freedom. These people quote Hegel, conceal their frailties, forget their regrets, and push on to bring forth another unchanging instance of War. Smaller scale too: a widower soldier's rage, a mutant's memories, a scribe's vanishing place in the world, that one Vault we all praise for its experiments on mob mentality and individual weakness, Benny's sorry ass in the arena or on the cross. The Courier is a capable agent, doing this, doing that for this and that reason with this or that skill. But as his imprint grows in town, city, world, and history, what does that say on that final level beyond and within? One could argue Fallout 1 and 2 never 'said' anything in the end. But it certainly sounded like something. All that power to choose one's destiny coming up against loneliness, betrayal, schizoid uncertainty, and just a little handful of light and companionship and a still wasted world so undersized in the palm of a power armor suit. The problem is that New Vegas, in its base form, is not haunted. The rickety machine for all its charms still hasn't the ghost.

No wonder then, that the DLCs were so loud, so brazen in reversing the exorcism forced by their infamously troubled release schedule. For their own various faults, that line of add-ons truly added on, no less than the thickest fog of old world blues threatening to sadden the world, once with its absence and again with its rebirth. In the meantime, one marvels at the bloodless body. And to be sure, whatever spirit is to be returned must just as equally thank the skilled make of its vessel. The musculature, the sinews, the connective tissue, the way it moves and the places it goes, the way it handles itself and keenly observes, the way speaks and sneaks, the way it all but has proven the things it can do, the places it can go. And its fault I have laid out a tad harshly perhaps is no fault of its own, but circumstance. It was just shot in the head; it will get up, get out of this little town too small for its ambition. We will get to New Vegas soon.

Very conflicted feelings on this one…

The themes, art direction, voice acting, music, plot (kinda, will touch on it later) are all fantastic. All worthy of a top tier AAA game, and worthy of the hype attached to anything Kojima touches, BUT the presentation lets it down massively.

All of the above are phenomenal but the gameplay is so tedious, it’s halfway there to something great and just falls flat. I can understand why someone would love this but it’s not for me. Stealth/combat could be very fun but there’s just some tall grass and the strand weapon thing for takedowns, guns are uninteresting, hand to hand combat consists of a single 3 hit combo and a jump attack. The BT territory sections could also be very fun and engaging but they’re not, early on they’re gripping and feel very horror-esque but it’s not long before you just run through them with a Speed Skeleton or a Trike.

The meat of the game is traversal, and here I can see the appeal. I just felt like there was too much meandering and tedious journeys, to the point where it made it difficult to care about any of the cast beyond a few of the main characters. I can’t recall the name of a single person or story of any of the people at the way station things that I was constantly delivering to. Maybe this is on me, but by about 30% into the game I wasn’t giving any thought whatsoever into how I traverse areas, I’d simply craft a Bike, bring a few PCCs to keep it fully charged when I can, a Speed Skeleton, and just raw dog it to my destination lol. They kept throwing new items at me that would make my journey “easier” but why would I go through the hassle of carrying more cargo when I can just zip A-Z with the bike? Vibes are good tho

The story… idk how to feel. I think it’s solid but it’s presented so awfully. Boring exposition dumps, filler, uninteresting side characters, convoluted menus, “lore” hidden behind walls and walls and walls of text, and much more that just muddy what could be a more enjoyable experience. Kojima is just trying too hard. The game is also longer than it needed to be. I think cutting down from roughly 35 hours to 25 would do the game wonders, but I guess that would cause issues considering over half the game would then be cutscenes… I guess that’s why the game is statpadded with so much nonsense in the first place.

There genuinely is something really phenomenal here but very deep under the surface, because of the poor presentation it comes off as pretentious, self absorbed, pseudo intellectual, fake deep HOOPLA.

Some positives… I LOVE that Kojima doesn’t shy away from the fact that this is a video game. He fully embraces that whether it be through the hilarious 4th wall breaks, health bars in the Higgs fight, Heartman giving the players thumbs up, etc etc. very good

The core theme is about the strands (lol) that connect us to each other, and if anything, they nailed this on the head through the narrative and the gameplay. Out in the world you’ll never encounter another player, and you’ll never talk to another player, but you will find yourself rejoicing when you find a structure left behind by another player when you’re in a pinch. You’ll feel useful when you get the notification that another player used your structure that you left behind, you’ll spam likes on every structure to others know it was useful. Basically, it’s a very good feeling and it best emphasises selflessness and extending a helping hand out of kindness to a stranger through video games in a way never done. The closest comparison I can think of is NieR Automata’s Ending E, but like this is a whole game out of that credits sequence. sometimes I did dismantle my structures after finding a crazy route tho sorry lol I’m gatekeeping 😅😅 and thank you to every player that left generators everywhere, you made blitzing through everything with just a bike and speed skeleton easier

Some phenomenal characters in Cliff, Fragile, Malingen/Lockne and Die Hardman. Higgs had potential but eventually he became uninteresting, look forward to seeing what he’s cooking in the sequel. Cliff specifically tho… I don’t know if it’s because I’m just a huge Mads Mikkelsen fan but he’s one of my favourite video game characters already. What a man.

The soundtrack is some of the best you’ll find in the medium, just wish there were more moments where music would cut in while you’re out doing your deliveries. The game is very good looking, the face work is unreal all the actors killed it.

ok I’m done lol. Everything good but presented like ass making that everything not so good, brings an 8 or 9 down to a 4 or 5 it’s a huge shame

TLDR; just watch the cutscenes on YouTube