Even with a little longer campaign and more customization, this small improvement offers little bang for your buck.
Army of Two 40th day doesn't really have a cohesive story, which actually works to its advantage. The original attempted to build on real events (such as 9/11) and make the story serious, all while the characters involved could really care less. Everything is much more loose. You and your buddy are working for their own PMC, on a mission in shanghai. An army of mercs invade, without any reason at all, and no attempt to explain why. The story doesn't take itself seriously, allowing the players to just have fun, and not worry about the depressing backdrop, as was the problem with the first game.
The moral element of the game is completely misplaced, and contradicts the carefree even asanine nature of perhaps the two coolest mercs ever to grace gaming consoles. but fortunately, you can paint hearts on your gun, get diamond-encrusted grenades, pimp out your pistol, mount another gun on your already enourmous gun- and on that gun, mount a knife (my favorite, the assault rifle/ shotgun/bayonet combo!) Custimization is deep enough, but there could have been more. Well, there IS more, that is if you pre-ordered the game or you go out and get the first army of two. It is not worth it to pre-order a game that is lucky to even sell well in a month of big-hit games, and it isn't worth going back to get the 4 hour long original army of two game just for a few extra guns. This habbit of withholding content can be very, very aggravating, especially concerning exraction mode- but I'll get to that later in the review.
The main gameplay mechanic is aggro. The system is simple- the more one partner shoots, and the bigger and more shiney that gun is, the more enemies will pay attention to him, while the other buddy with a small silenced submachine gun can go around and flank a completely oblivious enemy. The system is pretty much a more action oriented take on basic flanking and bounding maneuvers. Though simple, in the 40th day this technique works very well, and since enemies don't need much to put you down, using aggro is essential, especially if you are on your second playthrough on the "contractor" difficulty. There are a few other teamwork oriented gameplay elements besides aggro. There is a good number of hostage situations that require planning out the attack and executing it well to save the unfortunate civilians at gunpoint. There's the good ol' back-to back sequences- though, not enough of them it seems.
Of course, Army of two is meant to be played by two players. Split-screen is available, and may be the best, since co-op online tends to run into problems; I never made it more than two missions with a single teamate without the game crashing or lagging out altogether. Still, the option of having an AI partner is there, and though lacking the personality you'd want in a teamate, the AI does a dam good job of dropping enemies, and can be used efficiently for using aggro, flanking and supressing. The combat system is so simple, that the AI feels remarkably intelligent- even though enemy AI tends to prioritize their targets oddly, albeit according to the aggro system. To put this odd phenomena more simply- if your partner shoots wildly and frequently enough to gain a large amount of aggro, you, the other partner, will be pretty much invisible to the enemy, to the point that you can pump 100 rounds of hot SAW lead into one enemy at point blank range, and an enemy next to that one will still ignore you provided your partner keeps soaking up aggro.
Online verus multiplayer is decent, but suffers from even more connection problems than the co-op mode. Without the aggro system, versus tends to boil down to a basic 3rd person gears of war style shooter- without the weapon customization that the extends the playability of the single player campaign. There's a good amount of multiplayer modes to choose from, but the lag problems are likely to turn away enough players to make matches scarce in time. There is one multiplayer mode only available to those who pre-ordered the game, called extraction, which (as I have heard) is a simple "Hold your ground" game against wave after wave of increasingly numerous and difficult enemies. But if you didn't pre-order the game, you won't have this mode for at least a month, which leaves a bad taste in one's mouth. Why pre-order a game if it won't be sold out on the first day it's available? This just feels cocky on the developers part to hold out like this, so I won't give credit for extraction mode.
40th day has some great graphics, but they certainly don't steal the show. The colors are vibrant, and the environments are varied. Nothing stands out as much as the graphics in the first game, which surprisingly good. You tend not to notice much details, however, given your focus is constantly on the enemy- the only peices of the environment you will pay attention to significantly are those you can take cover behind. Enemies are also repetitive, apart from a few heavy troops who still do not look quite different from their grunt counterparts.
All in all, the 40th day is a small improvement in a series that started out very low to begin with. Value is the big detterent for laying down the price of the game as it is. However, if you are looking for a good game to rent and play with a buddy, the 40th day offers some good ol' masculine entertainment for those in need of a short adreneline high. What the 40th day lacks in polish and overall value, it sometimes makes up by its distinct attitude.