Dead Space was a scary game but i was more scared when i heard Dead Space 2 was going to be a more action shooting game than the first. Turns out that indeed there is more action in DS2... but not to worry it's still a survival horror game! I'm really glad because i really didn't want the only good survival horror series this gen to turn into Resident Evil 5.
DS2 takes place 3 years after what happen at the USG Ishimura planet cracking ship in the first game. Issac managed to escape but got captured by crazy Earth Government people who locked him up in the Sprawl (a space station built on a moon orbiting Saturn) all this time... trying to use his mind to create another marker. So yes... all hell breaks lose...
The graphics are pretty similar to the first game... but i'll say DS2 looks a bit better. DS2 is not at the level of better looking PS3 games like Uncharted 2 or Killzone 3, but pretty good.
Like i said before, DS2 has more action than the first game so that might mean the controls have changed, but its really almost the same. It really plays like the first game aside from some improvements, like being able to use Kinesis to lift up sharp objects and impale enemies to walls. There are sections of the game like in DS1 where you are in 0 gravity. Now in 0 gravity you can move around in 360 degrees, instead of just jumping from wall to wall like in DS1.
DS2 also has multiplayer... which is terrible. I had some good laughs playing it though, so there is some value to this extra. The multiplayer really gets boring very fast. Its humans vs necromorphs, and the humans have to complete objectives while the necro's try to stop them. The humans are overpowered, the game is broken. It's impossible to beat a human team that knows what they are doing. Sure you can beat humans noobs who don't stick together and don't know what they are doing by gang banging them, but a good human team? Forget it. Why couldn't they try to do a good human vs human multiplayer? Multiplayer in a game like DS is just plain dumb to begin with... this is a single player game!
I really liked the single player in this game, better than DS1. Not that DS1 was bad, it was one hell of a game, and i liked the regen monster in DS1 better as well as the last boss fight. But overall DS2 wins. Now i hope Issac takes a vacation with his sexy eye girlfriend and lets someone else try and stop ................ in Dead Space 3...