Darksiders 2 is a sequel that does most things right.
This is a surprising move on the part of the creators, since most games are just continuations of the same story. However, it pays off, for the most part. Death is a pretty neat character in many ways. For one, he just looks really cool, especially when amplified with armor. He is also much more agile than War. This is almost immediately apparent. Whereas War was more or less restricted to jumping and climbing, Death can run up walls, and moves almost like a spider at times. This is amplified in combat, where his dodge is critical to survival.
Anyways, Death seeks out the Crowfather, who is supposed to hold all the knowledge in the world, or something along those lines. Death knows of something called the Tree of Life, which he hopes to use to resurrect humanity in order to clear his brother's name.
The story starts out promising enough, but, unfortunately, it never really becomes anything too interesting. Pretty much the entire game is just working to resurrect humans by completing favors for an underdeveloped cast. This is the most disappointing aspect of the game. Whereas the first introduced us to much of the mythology of this universe and had a pretty interesting story, Death's tale is nowhere near as compelling. As I said, the entire cast is underdeveloped. The game treats them as if they are full-fledged, well developed characters, but we never really learn anything about them besides their place in the universe and what kind of task Death must complete for them. At least the development for Death is somewhat interesting, as we learn about his past as well as the origin of the Horsemen.
While the story leaves something to be desired, other aspects of the game have been improved upon or more fleshed out form the first game. The most noticeable is the combat, which has been made smoother. Where the first one was somewhat tough to grasp, the way Death fights feels much more natural. He dances around the arena out of the way of enemy attacks and attacks in one fluid motion. There are a wealth of new moves available for you to purchase in addition to the basic moves you have in the beginning of the game, which helps further let you choose how to fight.
The game now features a loot system. Basically, enemies and chests will have randomly generated weapons or armor, which can increase your stats and help make Death stronger. This is a nice feature in theory, but there are some issues with it. The most apparent is the way the different types of armor are balanced. Ones that help increase your Magic attacks have incredibly poor stats. Meanwhile, ones that are made more for defending have stats that can be ridiculously high. This is a shame to me, because the "magic" types of armor are all really neat looking, but almost useless next to the less cool looking "combat" armor sets. Also, getting chests at earlier points in the game is actually kind of counterproductive. Whenever you enter an area with chests, the loot inside immediately scales to your level. So, you could open a chest at level five, but why do that when you can get an infinitely better piece of equipment at level twenty? Despite this, the loot system does give the game some replayability since the game features a New Game+ system.
On top of the loot system is a Skill Tree system. Battling, completing side quests and the like give you experience points. When you level up you are free to upgrade or purchase a new skill to use in combat. There are two Trees, one for pure offensive attacks (such as teleporting and slashing at the same time, which is helpful if you are in a corner) and the other for support moves (summoning Ghouls to come and help you fight). This gives you more options in how to slaughter your foes. It works well in giving you the power to choose how you want to fight.
Beyond the combat, there is a multitude of dungeons for you to explore. In the first game, there were four or five, while, in this game, there are tons more, although many of them can be considered "mini" dungeons. They are all generally well designed, with some pretty tricky puzzles, but nothing too mind bendingly tough. The main story ones are typically bigger than ones related to side quests, which is to be expected. Much like the first game, there are bosses at the end of each. However, for some reason, the bosses have taken a huge step back from the first game. Where in the first, you needed to learn their patterns and use unique ways of attacking (typically making use of the "dungeon item") to take them down. In this game, all of the bosses feel more like mini bosses. They are all just super versions of normal enemies, which is really disappointing. They still take some effort to bring down, but there is almost no strategy beyond just "dodge and attack."
The game is also structured very differently form the first. Rather than having one hub world, there are several different worlds that open up as you progress. A good chunk of the game takes place in the opening world, which resembles a more traditional fantasy Earth type setting, with bright, vibrant colors and ancient ruins. However, the other locales have some good variety to them. I won't spoil anything here, but I will say that each one looks different and pleasing to the eyes. However, one issue I had was that each world becomes shorter and shorter as the game goes on. The first area is about the same size as the entirety of Darksiders 1 while the next one is still decently large but noticeably smaller and the next one is comprised of one dungeon and a long road. It's almost as if the developers threw in the new worlds but didn't have enough room to put everything they wanted into the game. Despite that, the variety amongst the environments is welcome.
The dungeon designs aren't quite as varied. Granted, each one has an easily distinguishable "theme" but they all tend to look similar to each other. It's not a huge problem, but it is pretty strange considering that the worlds have good variety.
To help further flesh out the game world, you can talk to NPC's who will frequently give you side tasks to complete. These range from beating a secret boss to finding a certain number of special items. It's all pretty basic stuff, but they are fairly enjoyable and addicting to complete.
To wrap it up, Darksiders 2 is a sequel that tries to add a lot of RPG elements to the Darksiders formula. For the most part, it succeeds. The dungeons are all pretty fun, the loot system (while flawed) is pretty addicting (since you never know when you'll find the next big prize) and the Skill Trees give you a pretty deep set of options when it comes to fighting. There are some issues with the game, like a weak story and underused worlds, but Darksiders 2 is a game that any fan of the original should enjoy. So long and thanks for reading.