User Score
7.8 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 697 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Negative: 74 out of 697

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  1. Nov 15, 2010
    4
    This game deserves no praise. Its completely recycled from the previous title, your just a different character. the storyline is pretty bad and the game play is poor at best. I wish i didn't buy this game.
  2. HenryK
    Feb 20, 2010
    4
    PC version was tremendous let down. Widescreen issues, mouse issues, button assignment problems. This game could have been soooo much better but 2K dropped the ball big time by giving PC users essentially a crappy console port. The story line is not engaging, the maps seemed tired and reused, the enemies were excactly the same as the the 2007 release. Most importantly, the weapons,aside from the speargun, sucked! The upgrades were useless and plasmids were identical as the 2007 release. No innovation killed this game. Expand
  3. FreddyP
    Feb 22, 2010
    4
    Whole game is like the worst bits of Bioshock 1. Unimaginative, and just downright dark, dull and dreary. The reviewers who are calling this a masterpiece and "stronger" ... are on drugs. Don't waste your money. The original was fun. This isn't.
  4. MJ
    Feb 10, 2010
    3
    How'd they manage to keep a bunch of bugs that were existent in the first game? Wide-screen mouse sensitivity in menus? Subtitles not appearing correctly? Awkward mouse settings? It's like nobody tests their games anymore.
  5. LucaA
    Feb 9, 2010
    4
    This game is retro-minded: its graphics remains still the same of its predecessor of 2007, the textures being low-res and looking flat; there is no support for DX 11. AA is still working bad as in 2007 episode. The sounds are very similar to that of its predecessor. Gameplay still remains acceptable. Longevity is poor: about 8-9 h to finish the game. It seems that the Rapture could have done something better this time, but nothing sounds like a masterpiece. Too dated to be a universal acclaim...this game still remains in 2007 for both concept and technical aspects. There is the doubt to be only a commercial weapon to derive more profits from its predecessor success. Expand
  6. D.S.
    Feb 10, 2010
    0
    This is not a PC game, what we have here is a hulking piece of console port trash. First off, It took me about ten hours to get this game to even launch, and trust me, Im not alone with these problems, just look at the forums. Then, the game is an unoptimized, buggy piece of unplayable shit. Textures take forever to load even on heavy duty PCs and controls are horrid and feel very console-oriented. Even if you do manage to fix this broken game, its all really more of the same, but worse. Imagine Bioshock 1 without the engaging story or atmosphere. Expand
  7. sf
    Feb 9, 2010
    0
    0 for treating us like idiots.. AGAIN! ---- YOu thought they would have learned but it appears not. I have seen reports around the net already that PC widescreen users are once again SOL. 2K are you a bunch of monkeys? This game repeats all the same technical problems the first game had, that the 'community' helped you fix. And you throw it all away at the first hurdle with ridiculously cheap/outmoded 'vert+' 4:3. haha Don't play multiplayer with anyone on a 4:3 they will have massive advantage as they can see more in the Z Axis (up down) which is a proven advantage. Widescreen done correctly barely provides and advantage as X axis to the sides is not as big a show stopper. Simply can't believe they did this, even worse they lied again in the pre release blurb, saying that all aspect ratios were catered for! I've not seen the game myself yet but head over to wsg forum or google it if you are concerned about this silly developer not even remembering the s-storm their first game created. IT DOES NOT WORK ON A PC MONITOR 2 FEET IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE. Forced low FOV like this is ergonomically wrong and for many, a down right enjoyment killer. A total bunch of muppets working at 2k. First game was bad, almost excusable as these monkeys weren't tipped off yet to what other companies like Crytek and Valve already knew and were doing correctly, but to repeat the same mistakes all over again? Clowns, liars, lazy people god I hope this game bombs. see the 2 links to compare 4:3 with widescreen. If you just don't 'get' what all the fuss is about you really should go read up and start demanding proper respect. Does anyone even use 4:3 now that matters? http://img5.imageshack.us/i/98963547.png/ 4:3 Note the shots. the 4:3 is 'as envisaged' by the devs, it shows a nice scene, plenty of immersion due to feeling 'in the game' because you have visual room to breathe. http://img22.imageshack.us/i/65311755.png/ WS 16/10 16/9 Then look at the widescreen shot. What real devs do is correct the projection matrix to take this into account.. the WS screen should show EXACTLY the same top and bottom as the 4:3 screen, with a little extra on the sides to take into account the shape of the monitor. However what it does instead is use the same 'width' of the 4:3 and simply CROPS the picture and top and bottom, thus losing immersion, ergonomics and environmental depth. You feel like you are 'stuck on' the screen rather than surrounded by a game. It runs much deeper than this but as I said I can't believe 2k of ALL devs are repeating this basic school boy error again. They really are cheap hacks. Worse is that they didn't take WS users seriously. Those WS users who say 'so what, I don't care' well done you are part of the problem. Lets hope you never want to play on a triple surround screen set up because i'd love to see you squinting at games that fake widescreen like this. Anyone who is playing in widescreen, be aware you POV is no aprox 1 foot in front of your body, zoomed in, sickening to some but for me personally I don't like what it does to immersion. And don't believe anything the devs say about 'artistic vision' because it's clear their 4:3 is so different and actually looks 'better' because it has z-axis breathing space. I really think someone at 2k should use all the massive profits from the first game to invest in some MODERN monitors over at the dev offices, they wouldn't need us players to keep doing their job for them then. Expand
  8. Jul 24, 2011
    0
    This game bring nothing new to the genre. Not only is it buggy with bad controls but repetitive as hell. The story is bad filled with boring characters and stereotypes. And yet again re-spawning enemies. The control scheme is badly thought out. You have 8 plasmid and 8 weapon slots. I for one found it impossible to be able to bind all these to easy reachable keys with out dislocating my fingers. In the end you find yourself running around using 1 or 2 guns in combination with perhaps 1 to 3 plasmids. Sure you could bind for instance the mouse-wheel to for instance next and previous weapon but I have always found this kind of configuration highly unpredictable and unsatisfactory in combat situations. And this is if you can bind keys at all. In some cases the key-bindings doesn't even work as it should. This in turn breaks the combat system since you cant really switch fast enough between all these weapons and plasmids.

    The game-play in this game take me back to 1996. Nothing new to see here folks except a broken unsupported game.
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  9. Jun 6, 2012
    0
    Games for Windows Live failed a mandatory update and destroyed my saved games, which seem to be kept on a remote server. Bioshock 2 is thoroughly contaminated with DRM and installs gigabytes of junk.
  10. Nov 2, 2011
    4
    Great single player, terrible multiplayer. Randomly spawns you with an enemy targeting you back half of the times... Also the whole Games Live platform destroys the game. It's buggy, with cumbersome registration and at some point my account was deleted and I lost my savegames with it. I dropped the game and still regret paying for it.
  11. Nov 19, 2011
    2
    In a word "Bland". For clarification this game was not developed by the team that made the original. When the team declined to make a sequel because "Why?" The publisher 2k went forward with subsidiary studio used for making maps. They handed them the original and said "Make more" and that's really all they did. The engine and environment is mostly the same although PC players will notice a downgrade and texture quality. the campaign is something like 8 hours long and very very redundant. You spend the entire struggling with boredom and a feeling of "been there done that." The original game story focused on the flaws inherent in Libertarianism. The idea that you need no social structure other than the basic values found in the ten commandments. Logically the next game would play the devils advocate and focus on the flaws of Libertarianisms polar opposite Socialism. This would require some serious thought so instead the studio just shucked in a generic villain with no motive other than control. Nothing the characters in the say have any meaning or baring on the story even the main villain has very little to say. The game is pretty free with weapons and ammo making the game exceedingly easy.I rarely needed to reload other than from crashes which btw are constant and really the one true antagonist. The game has no SLi support and is rampant with bugs. For this reason alone you should stay away. With everything else available avoid this game. Do not bother. Not even for free. Expand
  12. May 20, 2012
    4
    Pretend your eating bland and mediocre food and your still hungry no matter how much you eat so you just keep on eating, that's a sum up of this game, for a price of 20$ on steam it is NOT WORTH IT, maybe MAYBE 5 bucks as this is what i payed for it, I was not pissed considering price and game play that i got but this is a really boring story with levels involving you doing the same stuff over and over again, your fighting the same enemies and you get a somewhat interesting story line but the tedious game play just crushes it completely.

    If you you really liked the game play of bioshock one and I mean you really just want to play anything that has all of that game play style, you might want to buy this one on sale.
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  13. Mar 10, 2012
    0
    If your thinking about buying Bioshock 2 on steam, don't even bother, Games For Windows Live has completely broke it. every time you sign in to GFWL bioshock 2 crashes. but here's the best part if you don't sign in to GFWL you can play it but you CANNOT save your progress, so if you quit the game you have to start over again.
  14. Mar 15, 2012
    1
    its forced sequel to bioshock 1, one of its big innovations is having the ability to use a plasmid and a gun at the same time :0. sadly the game is lacking in any kind of story give a **** and that's why i give it 1
  15. Apr 21, 2013
    4
    Bioshock 2 is a poor game. The combat is dull and repetitive, there are no interesting puzzles to solve, the plot is boring, the characters are difficult to care about, and the level design is as repetitive as the combat is. While the original Bioshock's story managed to pull through the mediocre gameplay elements, Bioshock 2 fails to do so, and is not worth your time or money.
  16. Oct 15, 2012
    1
    i am so mad, ima go buck nasty, who creates game like this. i am angry about it. i get NO ladies playing this game whatsoever no girls wanna play this with me
  17. Nov 28, 2012
    0
    Boring, glitchy and pretty irritating.
    Also managed to screw up my saved games and after a while stopped running.
    I regret buying this game.
    One of the few titles I am sorry I spent money on.
  18. Jan 6, 2013
    2
    I bought this game on the winter sale in Steam. And I was not able to play it? because was furious of a persistent demands to register in MS Live. And also from the fact, that game settings are not saving, possibly because of the fact that I did not enter the MS Live, but it just puts the game in a worse light.
Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 36 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 34 out of 36
  2. Negative: 0 out of 36
  1. Similar and slightly improved mechanics make this a worthy sequel, despite a sadly less-memorable story. [Mar 2010, p.70]
  2. A conservative return to Rapture, but full of quality.
  3. If 2K had managed to tell a story that equalled or bettered that found in the original, we'd have been left with an unquestionably better experience, rather than just a more exciting, smarter shooter.