Zelda meets Prince of Persia meets God of War.
Combat is fun enough but way too sparse. The ENTIRE GAME follows the same Zelda formula - Enter dungeon, fight enemies, solve generic puzzle, fight enemies, back track, boss.
It starts off strong. Really strong. I was really excited about the story for the first 2 worlds, and then I realized they ran out of steam and it just sort of....carries on. It loses itself in its own narrative, seemingly in an attempt to force you to make a "tough decision" relating to Darksiders 1 at the end of the game. Close, but no cigar. About halfway through they started trying too hard to keep the story interesting while overlooking the simple stuff in level design.
This ties into my biggest gripe with the game....the puzzles. Easy as it gets. HOWEVER, they can take you FOREVER to figure out because they fall into the "hidden" solution trap. They aren't hard to figure out, but it can be hard to realize that an area is accessible when an identical area in a previous dungeon was not, or you have to run all the way around the corner and then only if the camera is in just the right spot you'll see what you need hidden through a crack in the wall. It's no brains involved, just lots of wandering and looking for the right piece.
Also it doesn't tell you everything about the abilities you get. For one there's a "Portal" type ability where you open up one gate, then another elsewhere and you can go back and forth between those two. Well it never told me you can activate a portal through a portal. But in one level I could see a closed portal through an open portal, so I tried it anyways. Didn't work. So I ran around FOREVER looking for that portal only to give up and check online. Turns out I was right, and was at the right portal, I just didn't hit it in the sweet spot, which is very specific and can also close that portal. So after 4 more attempts, I then realized you don't actually see the portal open, you just have to assume it worked, jump through and hope for the best. It gets really old, really quick.
On top of that, like I said, there's hardly any action inbetween. The majority of fights are those "planned" fights we've come to love through GoW where you walk into a pit and the spikes raise and you fight a wave or four. Hardly do you have actual "dungeon" enemies that keep you on your toes as you explore. You can tell when a battle is coming 98% of the time, so it just becomes a trek moreso than a journey.
However the combat is fairly in depth. I see a lot of people complaining about it being too easy and how they played on Nightmare by button smashing. Yeah, I'm calling BS on them. I can almost guarantee they played for 20-45 minutes before writing their review. Maybe you can button mash on easy, but on normal+ there are some enemies where you have to combo them. I know for a fact they never beat The Crucible with button mashing. I played most of the game on Nightmare and I'm telling you right now, you CANNOT button mash your way through this game. Now having said that it's not particularly difficult as long as you know what to do for that enemy, but it's a game you have to really learn to master. Like any Action RPG...anyone can pick it up and play, but you have to work at it to conquer.
Next gripe = level design. AWFUL!!! There are waayyy too many levels and the game is way too long. Just because they're all the same. There's like 17 dungeons, and maybe 3 dungeon types. They just rehash puzzles and ledges and doorways from those 3 with different colors and enemies. I'm not even joking, I thought the game was over after like the 4th temple. Then I got stuck and looked it up online, only to realize I had 13 more to go. I literally slumped in my seat. I have to finish a game but I was ready for this one to be over. Fortunately they do LOOK beautiful, even though they all look the same.
And of course the whole Prince of Persia aspect is mildly fun but also gets old. There's no real depth to it. See a wooden stump in the wall, jump on it. See a pillar, jump on it. See a wall with run marks, jump on it. There's no "oooh I wonder if I can climb up there?!" It's "there's a ledge, where's the open wall and stump to get there?" Then this repeats for about 16 levels. Again, gets old.
So long story short, the game starts off incredibly strong, but wears down quick. It seems to start SO strong however that it's able to carry you through most of the game as it slowly dips. I'd rather go back and play GoW3, but I got DSII for cheap on Steam and it provided a good bit of fun. So I'd say it's worth $25 max but unless you're a die hard Darksiders fan, I'd just hold off on this guy till it's closer to $15.