Whether you enjoy Mafia II (M2) will depend on your expectations. If you expect it to be a sandbox-type game similar to Grand Theft Auto 4 (GTA4) where you go bowling with your buddies and take your woman on dates, then you might be disappointed. However, if you expect M2 to be a great cinematic experience with the backdrop of a gorgeous 1940's and 50's American city, then you will love this game. The developer, 2K Czech, even stated prior to the game's release that M2 does not aspire to GTA4's sandbox-style play and reviewers should keep that in mind.
There's a lot this game does right, but there's enough negatives to keep it from being a masterpiece. Let's start with what the game does right. The production values are top notch. The visuals are gorgeous, even in the context of the game being several years old. The graphics are noticeably crisper than GTA4, which felt blurry at the time and now look wholly unacceptable when compared to M2's graphics. M2 is a game you enjoy for the sensory experience. If your PC will allow it, play M2 at a minimum of 1080p resolution with all the detail settings cranked up. I would also recommend a dual-GPU setup so you can dedicate one GPU to PhysX rendering. PhysX, which essentially just adds more debris on the ground whenever there's an explosion, does add to the gameplay experience and you do notice it.
The cars in M2 look excellent, although the handling leaves something to be desired. They do not corner well, even when the simulation driving mode is turned off. If you're used to the GTA4 style of cars that turn on a dime, Mafia II's cars will take a bit to get used to. There's no name brand automobiles here, but knockoffs of popular oldies cars such as the Chevy Bel-Air (featured in the game as the Shubert Beverly) and Chevy Corvette (Shubert Frigate).
Another strong point for Mafia II is the audio. The dialogue is casual and believable, and the voice acting is top notch. The old time rock & roll songs are an utter joy for fans of old music like myself, and you can tell that 2K Czech really put the time in to find songs that match the atmosphere of the mission you're on. On some missions, when it's late at night and you've just killed somebody and disposed of them, you'll get into a car and a sad song will come on the radio. And other times, it will be a bright sunny day and you and Joe will be laughing and having a good time, and you'll get into a car and the song will be a fast-paced happy rock & roll song. It's little attention to details like that that really impress me.
A minor quibble is that the game is full of anachronisms. Much of the content in the game simply doesn't match up with the time period the game takes place in. For example, there's Playboy magazines scattered throughout, but the first Playboy magazine didn't appear until 1953, while Mafia II takes place in 1943 and 1951. Also, most of the Playboy pictures you find are from the 1960's. The music also doesn't match up. Rock & Roll music first appeared in the mid 1950s, and indeed, most of the rock & roll songs featured in the game were from the late 1950's. Buddy Holly's "Rave On" was released in 1958. Chuck Berry's "No Particular Place to Go" was released in 1964. Dean Martin could be considered the music headliner, as he has 4 or 5 songs featured in the game. The soundtrack is generally spot on, although it's too bad they didn't include any Frank Sinatra. Sam Cooke is also nowhere to be found. That's an odd exclusion considering that Cooke was a popular rock & roll singer in the 50's. Not only that, he was actually around and making music in 1951, as was Sinatra.
Also, some of the great-looking cars are not accurate for the time period. The Corvette Convertible (featured in the game as the Shubert Frigate) didn't first appear until 1953. But that's a minor quibble.
One thing to note about the dialogue is that its rife with racism and sexism. I'm sure that's probably the way mobsters talked 60 years ago, but the sheer level of racism can be a bit jarring at first. You don't hear people talk that way anymore. This game is not politically correct, so if that's important to you, you might want to take a pass. However, some players will appreciate that the game doesn't try to re-write history by being politically correct about the way it references women and ethnic groups.
What's interesting is that after Mafia II's release several years ago, an Italian-Americans rights group criticized the game for portraying Italians in a negative light. But really, the game pretty much portrays every minority group in a negative light. Blacks, Italians, Irish, Asians, women, you name it, this game portrays negatively. You can definitely tell Mafia II was developed by white males for white males.
I was disappointed that women didn't play a more important role in the storyline. The main character, Vito, has no girlfriend or wife. That seems odd considering that when you watch mobster movies and TV shows, the protagonist is always married, and has girlfriends on the side. No such case in Mafia II. Vito seems to place more importance on making money and doing what he's told, rather than scoring tail. There's one scene early in the game where he stands up for Joe's girlfriend ("one of them, anyway" Vito says) by punching some goon who is threatening her. She is smitten by this and invites Vito to come back to her place for, and I quote, "a piece of pie." I suppose you could make the argument that Vito passes on her offer because she's Joe's girlfriend and it would be wrong to sleep with her. But honestly, Joe sleeps with almost every woman in the game, and I doubt he would care if Vito hooked up with her. It would've been nice if you were at least given the option to go sleep with her, or you could pass and continue on with the main storyline. Make it optional and give the player the choice.
The only women in the game that matter at all are Vito's mother and sister, and they have minor roles. Part of Vito's ascendancy should be him getting married (this is 1950's America, after all), and the player should have the option of having girlfriends on the side, or eschewing that common Mafia practice.
Another complaint is that there's no gambling in the game at all. Not only can you not gamble, but there's no mention at all about gambling, which was one of the main revenue generators for the mafia. They should give the player the option to run gambling dens. Start off as a bouncer in a card room, then be tasked with killing a habitual cheater, similar to the mob movie "Casino." That could be your introduction to killing for the mob. No such luck. Gambling apparently doesn't exist in 1950's Empire Bay.
Likewise, prostitution has a limited role in the game. You don't get to run whore houses. You get to visit a cathouse once during a bizarre scene in which your boss receives oral sex right in front of everybody then proceeds to yell a sexist insult at the woman.
The concept of protection money also doesn't exist in Mafia II. There's no shaking down of businesses for protection money, like you can do in the Godfather games. In fact, the mob in Mafia II seem to exist solely for the purpose of conflict. If your only knowledge of the mob came from this game, you would be surprised to learn that the mafia is a business organization whose primary objective is to make money.
In another odd exclusion, banks don't seem to exist in M2. You can't rob banks like you can in the Godfather games. Empire Bay lacks an airport as well, which seems odd considering that the city is modeled after New York City. It would've been a nice nod to the movie "Goodfellas" if Empire Bay not only had an airport, but allowed you to rob airliners that had government shipments of money.
Despite Empire Bay being a port city, and having a commercial dock, boats don't play a role in the game. No sailing for you. It would've been nice to give the player the option to sneak onto cargo ships and rob shipping containers.
The game has some notable weaknesses. The biggest achilles heel is probably the police. They're everywhere in Mafia II. On the street, about every 5th car is police. And when you're walking down the sidewalk, there's a patrol man about every 50 feet. It's completely absurd. I understand that Empire Bay has an organized crime problem, but no city would have the money to have that many police officers out patrolling. The police are also annoyingly aggressive at times when they shouldn't be. During one chapter, I was driving about 20 mph over the speed limit, so a police car way in front of me turns on his siren and attempts to pull me over. I ignore him and speed past him, then all of a sudden he rear-ends me into a concrete barrier and I die. I hadn't killed anybody. I hadn't done anything wrong except for going over the speed limit and the cop flips out and kills me.
The game's limited extra-curricular activities are another problem. You can steal cars and sell them to a scrapyard on the far end of town. Unfortunately, the scrapyard is at such an inconvenient place and the money you receive from scrapping the cars is so modest that it's not really worth your time. The fun factor in scrapping cars is just not there. The most lucrative way of making money is to steal cars and sell them to Derek at the docks, but there are heavy restrictions on this. Derek will accept only certain cars, they can't be dinged up too bad, and you can only do this during a few chapters of the game.
A far less lucrative way of enriching yourself is the robbing of cash registers, which is way more work than it should be. If you go into a diner with the intention of robbing it, you have to rough up the cashier, and then there's a good chance that one of the patrons will pull a gun on you, possibly shooting you in the back as you're dealing with the cashier. That is far too complicated. Robbing a joint should be as easy as pulling a gun, pointing it at the cashier, demanding the money, and then you leave. That's it. Instead you get into a shootout over $100, and because there's police everywhere, they show up to the scene of a crime almost immediately. Like I said, it's completely absurd and not at all realistic. If they wanted to make the game more difficult for the "hard" difficulty level, they should have increased your enemy's hit points, instead of coating the city in cops, making you feel like Empire Bay is a police state.
In the first Mafia game, cops would pull you over for running red lights. Yes, it was annoying, but it made you take driving seriously. With Mafia II, you can speed through red lights, and the police don't care. In my opinion that detracts from the realism of city driving. The AI drivers in the game drive way too slow. If the speed limit is 40, the AI drivers are going 30-35. If it was realistic, they would driving 45-50 in a 40 mph zone. Also, The AI drivers accelerate like molasses when a light turns green. I would've preferred a system where the AI drivers were faster and accelerated realistically after light changes with the tradeoff being that you had to stop at red lights or risk getting a ticket. Most of the time in M2 you drive like you're the only car on the road.
The first Mafia game just had a more realistic feel to the driving. The driving in M2 has too much of an arcade feel. You barrel down the street going 100, blowing by cops, blowing through stop lights. It's ridiculous. What they should've done to make the driving better was had fewer police cars on the road, but made it where you had to stop at red lights or you get a ticket. To help the player avoid police, the minimap should be zoomed out more, so you have more advance warning of police. Currently, the minimap is zoomed in so far that you don't see police cars until they're nearly on top of you. Such a system would've provided a nice mix of realistic driving by way of stopping at traffic lights, but you wouldn't have to do that every time. Only when a police car was in the area. If no police car was in the area, you could blow through the light.
Another weakness is the save-game system. The auto-saves are few and far between, and there's no manual-save option. So if you decide to go on a car-stealing binge and fill your garage with a stable of awesome sports cars, just realize that those cars in your garage won't save until you trigger a checkpoint in the storyline. If you happen to die before you reach a save checkpoint, those cars will vanish from your garage. It's an unfortunate system that has the effect of discouraging you from collecting cars. The save-game system rears its ugly head the most in the final chapter of the game. You'll know what I'm talking about when you get there. It feels like there should be a save checkpoint sooner. Despite how carefully you proceed through the level, there's always a goon who surprises you and kills you. And then you have to start over from the entrance. However, once you get past the first savepoint of the last mission, then the rest is easy.
Oddly, the game auto-saves before cut-scenes, when it should auto-save after them. If you happen to die after viewing the cut-scene but before you reach a save point, you will have to restart the chapter and the cut-scene will play again (although you are given the option to hit the Escape button and skip the cinematic). Why not auto-save AFTER the cut-scene?
Also, it would've been nice if the game auto-saved after you made any changes to your garage. The garage system in general is pretty outlandish. You're given a 1 car garage and you're somehow able to store 10 cars in there. Pretty absurd. GTA4 had a better system where you store your vehicles out in front of your apartment. That was a superior way to handle vehicle storage. You could just walk up to whichever car you wanted to drive, instead of walking over to a garage and having to cycle through a dozen vehicles. There's really no need to store 10 vehicles anyway. And you never see them, since they're stored in your garage. In GTA4, you got to see your awesome collection of cars anytime you came home because they were parked on the street.
Money in the game is superfluous and exists mostly to advance the storyline. Later in the game you lose all your money, so don't try to earn thousands of dollars early on by doing side quests. You'll just lose it and get frustrated. Ironically, Vito becomes a mobster because he doesn't want to be poor, yet you spend 90% of the game being dirt poor. The problem with a game like Mafia II is that you're playing it to feel rich and powerful, yet that never happens. Even late in the game, you're nothing more than a lowly errand boy. You have no autonomy. Actually that's not true. You have autonomy over which car you drive and which gun you use. That's what your decision-making in the game is limited to.
You'll want to re-map some of the key bindings. I'd recommend assigning the middle mouse button for taking cover. When driving, I like mouse scroll wheel up and down for changing the radio stations.
Pros: Top-notch production values, gorgeous visuals, excellent dialogue and voice acting, believable storyline