A great game that is irreparably devastated by an absolutely terrible finish.
Dead Space 2 tries to be everything its predecessor was, but with every possible gimmick turned up to eleven. The graphics, gore, atmosphere, gore, soundtrack, gore, monsters, gore, weapons, gore, story, and gore are all improved upon. The gore, in particular, is far more prevalent, having become the premier showpiece for the game. Ridiculous advertisement campaigns aside, Dead Space 2 is, simply put, a very violent game. Blood, guts, and all manner of bodily fluids come spewing from practically every orifice of every living or undead thing you encounter with just the slightest bit of provocation. Bodies get ripped apart as if they were wet tissue paper, and the transformation scenes where we get to see humans become "necromorphs" consist of dudes' face exploding into freakish masses of bloody tentacles. If you're into that sort of thing, then believe me when I say that the game certainly satisfies.
Gameplay is the same as last time, only with a greater number of alien mutant zombies for you to tear apart with your "engineering tools". You have access to more "tools" this time around, and even some guns aside from your trusty pulse rifle, but some of them leave a lot to be desired, like a sniper rifle that you'll definitely never use or invest any of your precious power nodes in. For the most part, you'll probably stick to the same weapons as last time, with the exception of one particularly useful proximity mine "tool" that makes a lot of the game's more difficult adversaries far more manageable.
Overall, the game manages to give you exactly what you came for, until the very last third of it, where you barely even relay any actual attention on the monsters themselves. Rather, after you've died for the umpteenth time either because you couldn't tell what was attacking you, you got stuck in a corner because there were too many monsters in the way, or you simply got sick and tired of having another three of the bastards burst through ventilation shafts into the same room right after they've already done that six freaking times in the last five minutes, you'll actually just start walking right past them in search of the nearest exit. It actually becomes boring fighting the more beefy and "evolved" monsters that you encounter later just because it takes so much to kill them and they throw so many of them at you. Infact, they almost become set pieces, and worse, ones you barely even pay any mind to.
In honesty, I was happy with a greater emphasis on the stasis module, since in the last game I almost never used it or even had any energy in it at all, and only broke it out for the occasional "puzzle" that the game threw my way. However, the actual puzzles aren't much better this time around, nor are their replacements, the mini games, and by that I actually mean mine-game since there's only one of them where you hack into doors and other electronic gizmos that Isaac's engineering background give him knowledge of.
Production values are better this time around though that's to be expected after 2 years on the PS3 and 360. They're pretty impressive but nothing near the quality of each respective console's heavy hitters. The character models and facial animations, when they're actually displayed, are rather impressive, and the monster designs are pretty cool. The Sprawl has some memorable set pieces, but the really amazing stuff usually happens at the end of a chapter, with Isaac dodging parts of a runaway train that's coming apart as he desperately tries to board it, or when he's trying to avoid a giant necromorph while also outrunning a space helicopter decked out with a couple of minigun lasers.
Dead Space 2 isn't bad. In fact, I'd say it's very, very good, only that it just goes on for too long. If it had ended 2 or 3 hours earlier, I'd have still been itching for more.
If not for the game's final stretch, I'd have been all about recommending Dead Space 2. However, and primarily because of what the last third of the game puts you through, I would only suggest renting the game, playing it for the duration of that one rental, getting to about Chapter 12, and then calling it quits, and finally getting online and read the ending on Wikipedia, or just watch it on YouTube. Either way, you'll be much more satisfied than actually drudging your way through the last few chapters.