Mafia II's in-depth story and beautiful visuals are its highlight.

User Rating: 8 | Mafia II PC
Mafia II takes place in a city where mafia families rule the streets. You play as Vito Scaletta who's doing what he can to join a family to make some cash, alongside his friend Joe Barbaro. You experience the story in great detail while playing as Vito, as you spend countless hours driving around the city and participating in shoot-out sequences. You follow Vito from the moment he wakes up in the morning, to when he goes to bed. Which provides us with an incredibly in-depth and personal storyline to enjoy. The story is filled with brutal plot twists and turns and shock moments revealing the true face of participating in the mafia's plans. You explore an open world-like beautiful town and must drive through it to get to each objective, driving a car completely of your choice (most of the time). You will have to escort people to certain locations, and sometimes participate in car chases, or shadow people to find out where they're going. The shoot-outs you participate in on foot are pretty basic, gameplay-wise. You just cover and fire and move on. The settings you have these shooting sequences are very visually impressive and the physics of breaking stone and other objects behave very realistically and are always a thrill to add in battle sequences.

The good things in Mafia II:
-The absolutely beautiful visuals using an incredible physics and lighting engine.
-The in-depth storyline with its constant twists and turns and character development. You don't miss anything.
-The music that plays on the radio as you drive around.
-Personalizing and finding a favourite car to drive around is quite intriguing.
-The game's original soundtrack perfectly suits the mood and feel.

The bad things in Mafia II:
-Frustratingly placed checkpoints.
-Traffic AI has its faults and may result in head-on collisions, totaling YOU or your car.
-If you're picky at having your car in perfect condition at all times, lots of money will be spent repairing it due to how easy it is for another AI-controlled car to ram you.
-Somewhat unsatisfying ending.
-Some gameplay doesn't feel exciting enough and is a little too basic.

This game definitely gives me the vibe of an 8.2 due to its frustrating, minor flaws that affected the experience a little more than they should, but they don't outweigh the lasting effect and chilling story that you'll get from this game.

I'll have to round the score to 8 from 8.2 due to the rating system.