Lost Planet 2 is the perfect example of frustrating design choices and wasted potential.
The campaign mode is long and can be enjoyable. The game was designed to be played with friends and this introduces problems. Local co-op works with the sacrifice of the game's resolution, however the online setup for finding a game is terrible. You can only join a match if you've completed to that point in the game. Also, if you join a match in progress, you can only join between missions. This often leaves you sitting in the lobby for over 10 mins.
Another problem with multiple people in the campaign is that you share respawns. If you have one particularly terrible player, they can easily eat through all your lives and force the entire team to restart the chapter. Which points out another problem, the game only checkpoints at each chapter. While most players will be able to make it through a whole chapter on normal and easy without much trouble, it really hurts when you're right at the end of a difficult portion and the game sends you back to over 30 mins of play ago.
Additional problems with multiplayer campaign revolve around the time reqired to play. A chapter can take over an hour to complete and finding four random people to stick through beginning to end is very difficult. It is even worse if you join and the host decides to drop out, because you're kicked out and have to restart the chapter.
It is possible to try the campaign on your own. To me, this has been more enjoyable, but there are still some flaws. The AI of team-mates is terrible. They will occasionally surprise you with a helpful move, but don't expect them to complete any objectives. Most of the time, you're completely on your own. This is a problem because bosses and other enemies are designed to absorb damage from 4 human players and their health does not scale back for someone playing solo. It is possible to still win, but it is often boring to spend minutes on end shooting the same boss in the same weak spot. Of course the lack of checkpoints still comes into play and when you almost had a boss down just to get killed and have to restart, now, an hour back, it makes it very difficult to continue playing.
The greatest thing to dislike about the game is one particular train level. You'll be knocked off the stage so much, and have to restart so much, and have to watch the stupid unskippable cutscene so much, that you'll hate it. My personal opinion is that the entire level should have been cut, and the boss portion of the stage left to stand on its on.
The online competitive multiplayer doesn't fair much better than the campaign. The level design is pulled from the campaign and doesn't focus on the things that make Lost Planet unique. Most stages require very little use of the grapple and weapons are always sparse. A big control problem is the inability to shoot while being shot. You can eventually get the hang of it, but it still doesn't make it fun. In the end, every kill bases or battle gauge based game reduces to spawn camping before its over and post grab matches just aren't fun. If you add to that the fact that every match has at least one person warping around from lag, you get the feeling what its like. Despite the success of the first title this game's flawed multiplayer is not worth your time.
In the end, you have a very pretty game with a lot of potential that just fell flat on its face. It feels like the developers just didn't care to polish the title, Despite repeated delays, the team behind Lost Planet 2 failed to address some of the games basic problems. Its sad too because Lost Planet is unique with some great graphics and super cool over-the-top bosses. As a fan of the first, I would discourage anyone from buying this game barring a major title update.