Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 55 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 1574 Ratings

  • Summary: Set in the zombie apocalypse, Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D2) is the highly anticipated sequel to the award-winning Left 4 Dead. This co-operative action horror FPS takes you and your friends through the cities, swamps and cemeteries of the Deep South, from Savannah to New Orleans across five expansive campaigns. Play as one of four new survivors armed with a wide and devastating array of classic and upgraded weapons. In addition to firearms, you'll also get a chance to take out some aggression on infected with a variety of carnage-creating melee weapons, from chainsaws to axes and even the deadly frying pan. You'll be putting these weapons to the test against (or playing as in Versus) three horrific and formidable new Special Infected. You’ll also encounter five new "uncommon" common infected, including the terrifying Mudmen. Helping to take L4D's frantic, action-packed gameplay to the next level is AI Director 2.0. This improved Director has the ability to procedurally change the weather you’ll fight through and the pathways you'll take, in addition to tailoring the enemy population, effects, and sounds to match your performance. L4D2 promises a satisfying and uniquely challenging experience every time the game is played, custom-fitted to your style of play. [Valve] Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 55 out of 55
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 55
  3. Negative: 0 out of 55
  1. Left 4 Dead 2 is better than its predecessor in nearly every possible way. It’s more demanding, more varied, and more entertaining.
  2. When the storms kick up on Hard Rain making it really easy to startle a wandering Witch, escaping the mall in Dead Center, running around a rollercoaster track in Dark Carnival, running a gauntlet of abandoned vehicles across the bridge in The Parish, reviving a dead Survivor in Swamp Fever as a Tank could be heard somewhere behind me and managing to down the Tank with the guy I just saved. Even just writing about it makes me want to jump in and play some more.
  3. 100
    Left 4 Dead 2 is the Empire Strikes Back of zombie games. The momentum has clearly swung in favor of the bad guys. But also much like Empire, this is clearly the best of the bunch and is a required purchase for fans of the genre.
  4. 85
    The PC version mirrors all of the good stuff and can be confidently defined as a title that is going to be hours of fun to PC gamers the world over.

See all 55 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 57 out of 361
  1. Simply a fun game to play. What makes it fun is the way you can play the single player mode over and over again, stand back to back with your friends fighting zombies, BE zombies and the graphics are good! Expand
  2. Cyph3rPunk
    8
    While this is an amazing game, there are WAY too many problems with it to warrant a 10. Charger hit detection is way off (due to how the Source engine processes hits), jockey is a fail class, only useful against scrubs, and (unfortunately) the community, just to name a few things. To those who say this should have been DLC: 5 completely new maps, new weapons, all new voice acting, new AI Director, and new ammo types/throwables. What more could you want in a new game? Everyone buys Dat Madden every year with only minor upgrades and roster changes, but nobody bitches about that. Expand
  3. 7
    Left 4 Dead 2 is a game that should be looked at entirely separately from its predecessor. Yes, it was released one year after the first one, yes it is the same game mechanics but with different characters/areas. Those however, are what makes it a new game. Many people thought they should have released dlc for the original and been done with it, but if you look at both games, you can tell the first one was more of a dry-run at the franchise, a polished beta, if you will. It tried new ideas while doing them well. L4D2 is released, and you can see what they were trying to do all along. They succeeded in creating a very nice experience for friends to play and it provides a huge amount of options and game modes to go back to. It runs on Source, which speaks for itself in terms of performance. The lack of content is what held this game back. If it knew it was only going to be a game comprised of multiple short campaigns, it should have prepared for the desire of the consumer for more, by adding at least 5 more original campaigns. Expand
  4. This is the most disappointing purchase I have ever made. Firstly, this game is produced in 2009, but the graphic is like before 2005. And with such bad graphic, it runs with 40% less average fps than dead space one in the same setting on my computer. Secondly, the movement is very slippery, and shooting is very uncomfortable either. I always feel that I am playing a skiing simulation game, not a shooting game at all! Although it is a little bit fun to play with 3 other players on line, the overall presentation is too poor to match the score of 89/100. Originally, I want to give it 2 or 3 out of 10, but when I see the score is 89, I was shocked, so I decided to warn people to make the purchase carefully by give it 1 out of 10. Expand

See all 361 User Reviews

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