What a mess.
First off the graphics are tremendously bad mixed with the very static animation which in no way helps the eye candy. If the animation was more varied, more realistic, fluid then the graphics wouldn't get such a slating from me but trust me when I say that sick on a pavement is more enjoyable to look at than Mercenaries 2. Just check out the engines in some of the cars - it's like an inexperienced monkey-rat-boy who's never seen the light of day (or a car engine for that fact) has made them. Water and fume effects are very amateur looking and whilst you can swim in the game, it's like your character just has a bit of a splash, doesn't go up or down in the water but is incredibly balanced just on the surface. Plus if I can swim, why can't I climb?!
Variety is the key aspect to design for games of this type today. Mercenaries 2 lacks variety in its weaponry (could've had dual welding pistols for a start) there's only one type of shotgun to please everyone in the Mercenaries world, one type of RPG (excluding the anti-aircraft missile launcher), one type of pistol, typical melee moves (the option of a knife or machete would've been great) and the list generally goes on with everyone, main characters and secondary characters constantly repeating themselves! I don't want to hear about that stupid bridge anymore! Once is enough!
Mercenaries 2 is so broken that by the point you experience these things, you find a glitch or bug that makes you character stand hopelessly in a rock along with some bad guys and a helicopter gunning you down. An explosion near you won't quite put you out of your misery, or knock you so you move out of the rock, instead it'll drop your health down to around 1-5% but you'll still be able to take several bullets before actually dying. By this point, you'll actually want to just kill yourself than anyone else in the game.
The physics are just stupid. Nothing is balanced at all! A personal note to Pandemic: "Metal oil barrels are very hard to push over in real life, when a character goes up to them and taps them slightly, they shouldn't fall over or go flying". Your character can actually move the missile pick ups that your helicopter pilot has to pick up using a helicopter because apparently it's too heavy for your character to lift.
Gameplay is just dated. When using a special car with a gun attached, one has to use 3 fingers on one side of the joypad in order to control the car and shoot the gun at the same time. Driving a vehicle requires you to use the A and X buttons for accelerate and brake rather than the now traditional trigger buttons. And what will really make you yak is the fact that you can't customise these controls or have the option to select a different set. Get with the times Pandemic!
There was so much potential with Mercenaries 2. How no one picked up on all these major flaws during testing is beyond me especially when considering the fact the game was going to be released back in March or May. I thought Pandemic were better than this and I actually thought EA were actually going through a phase where they were releasing good games and polished games. This game is just so bad that now I'm not so sure.