Crysis 2 is an excellent shooter boasting fantastic gameplay and visuals.
You play as a marine known as Alcatraz, and start off the game on a submarine on its way into New York City, knowing nothing but the fact that the city has been ravaged by a deadly virus and that there's rumors of an alien infestation. But when things don't go as planned, you, under unique circumstances, gain access to the Nanosuit from the original Crysis and must make your way to the doctor on your own, but a certain group of people plan on not making that very easy for you, and throughout the game you'll see the city start to collapse from the alien invasion. The story takes a while to get going, and the characters are uninteresting, but once it gets going you'll want to see the game through.
Your number one tool against the alien scourge is the Nanosuit 2. Unlike in the first game, you don't switch between the armor, strength, speed, and cloak. Instead you only activate the armor and cloak modes; strength will kick on when you go to jump or grab an enemy or jump, and speed will power up when you go to sprint. If you liked deciding which mode was best for each given situation you may be a little disappointed but it allows for some fun free-running like moments allowing you to quickly jump across rooftops, slide under trucks and down ramps, and grab ledges all within a matter of seconds.
To make full use of your Nanosuit, the campaign is full of large environments. Most areas have multiple levels to fight from and there's plenty of buildings to fight through and hidden routes to take. The stealthy player may activate his cloak and find his way to the nearest sewer to sneak through (many combat situations can be completely avoided if you're stealthy enough.) Someone who prefers long range combat can stick to the upper levels of buildings or rooftops with a sniper rifle. Close quarter players can fight their way through offices or go all out in open courtyard charging up to people with armor mode on, kicking over cars and ripping machine guns off their emplacements. If you ever need help figuring out what to do a handy visor can be brought up to highlight areas to sneak through or flanking routes and stuff like smart places to throw a grenade or nice sniping positions. Many of the aliens are agile however so never expect any place to be safe and enemies will surround you if you stick to one place for two long. All this leads to some awesome encounters where you're attacked from all sides and angles, and you're encouraged to play tactical.
Crysis 2 does have its fare share of less open ended, cinematic moments though, especially towards the later half of the game. But these are some of the most memorable parts as well. The beginning lacks any real memorable moments (although it's still fun) and it just feels like a large shooter. Later on, however, once the story gets going the game is full of exciting cinematic moments and tons of awesome combat. And the game hardly ever takes control away from you, but does a good job at keeping your attention on what they want you to be looking at. There are some button prompts to fix your attention on the screen though, but they can be ignored if desired.
The AI is, for the most part, fairly competent. Your human opponents follow a set path for when on patrol and once one sees you, they all home in on your location aggressively running up shooting, while some stay behind giving cover fire. But there always seems to be a couple enemies doing stupid stuff like running right by you without taking a shot or just sitting there when they clearly should have seen you snap the neck of someone standing right next to him. During one part of the game where I had "backup" from a group of marines, I saw one of them running down a road firing non stop into the air when all the enemies are in the opposite direction. It's almost like he was just trying to look cool.
Many of these awesome moments are brought to life by an excellent soundtrack, which was helped composed by Hans Zimmer, the man behind the OST's of movies like Crimson Tide and Inception. The voice acting and sound effects, on the other hand, are pretty average. Characters never seem to show enough emotion to make them convincing or interesting, and some voices feel out of place. Weapon sounds are fine but aren't impressive, explosions are alright but could've been improved upon, and the aliens for the most part just make the hissing noise that most of the aliens make aren't all that intimidating.
The graphics on the other hand, are great, as to be expected from a sequel to Crysis, a game widely know for its amazing visuals. There's some graphical bugs and occasional pop-in here and there, but for the most part, they are beautiful. The graphical style does a good job at making you believe that you're in NYC, even though it isn't very original. And from a technical perspective, this is probably the best looking game I've ever played on my PS3.
To add to the value of Crysis 2 is a decent online component, but for the most part it feels like a pretty looking Call of Duty with a nanosuit. You level up by gaining experience, create custom classes where you can customize your weapons and choose perks, and you earn killstreaks. It's all pretty unoriginal in those reguards but thankfully adding a nanosuit can make just about anything fun. The maps are pretty well designed, letting you get full use out of the suit and I had some exciting moments where I engaged in high speed chases across rooftops trying to take someone down and ambushing someone from cloak mode is pretty satisfying. I also haven't had any noticable lag whatsoever and finding a game is usually quick and easy. It probably wont replace your go to multiplayer game but there's enough here to keep any multiplayer addict busy.
Most of your time though, will likely be from replaying the campaign. It's fun enough that you'll probably play through some segments multiple times just for fun and because it'll probably play out differently from the last time you played it. There's also some minor extras like the ability to listen to any song in the game or replay the cutscenes. There's also NYC souvenirs, email conversations, and vehicle keys to collect for those who like to get 100% in their games and the game includes a chapter select so you can skip strait to your favorite levels after beating the game if you'd like.
Overall, Crysis 2 is a fantastic shooter with a campaign that stands out from the rest. Fans of the original may be disappointed by some of the design choices but should still be impressed by how fun the game is, and that the visuals are just as impressive as the original. Whether you've been a fan of the Crysis series since the original, or this is your first time, odds are you'll enjoy Crysis 2 for its open ended gameplay, impressive visuals, impressive soundtrack, and overall satisfying story.