Never delivered what was promised. Sad that a good game needs this much attention.
Review is after the newest patch and free content, taking into account all the changes.
Gameplay- 8/10
They managed to get rid of the clunkiness that was present at launch. You no longer accidently take cover against a wall while trying to bandage your wounds. Now that a few problems have been ironed out it is easy to take cover behind walls, peak out of cover, ect. It feels like a first person Rainbow Six Vegas.
The firearms all have a realistic feel to them and can be used in a more complex fashion that was default in the first red orchestra. For example, manual bolting, no auto reload, no ammo info.
Sound- 6/10
The music is beutifull and includes recordings from an actual orchestra. The music also changes depending on the pace of the battle. But this can turn into a mess when there is no clear winner. If the match is even the music can rapidly change from upbeat, to depressing, instead of a chaotic or eerie sound that would fit the uncertainty better.
Firearm sound would get a higher score because while the guns do sound real compared to their counterparts and in terms of loudness, they could have done alot more. For example the rifles sound like their counterparts, so do the smg's, but there is no echo or bullet cracking. Only the default "bullet wizzed by your face" sound that doesn't scare me as much as that sound would in real life.
Visuals- 7/10
They look nice. Good attention to detail on uniforms, guns and ammo. But textures inside buildings can get a little repetive. Does every building have to be textured to look like a grenade blew up in the room and shrapneled the wall? No but they did it anyway. Now it looks like a bomb landed perfectly in every living room in Stalingrad but did no structural damage, or magicly bypassed the intact roof.
Community- 5/10
Weirdly I have to include this. The original red orchestra still has hundreds more playing online then Red Orchestra 2. The original also has hundreds of community/clan made maps of realistic locations, fictional ones, and remakes of source game maps. Ever liked a DoD map but didn't like the gameplay? The solution was made.
The community of Red Orchestra 2 is more or less dead. After they had a free weekend and dropped the price by 75% about a month ago the player base saw a surge. But after the sale ended and the free players left the player base still hovers between 300-600 at night and 500-1200 on peak afternoons.
Also the content promised by the devs was never furfilled. Maps are few and far between, player made content is too since the SDK was released way too late, gameplay modes that were supposed to be included at launch haven't been implemented yet(Online campaign?) and there are two full scale mods funded by game sales that show no progress over the last year.
Overall a good game is dying. It was horibble at launch, fixed as of recent, but would need an adrenaline shot and a heart defibulator to bring this title back to life. The company needs to keep the price permanantly at 75% off to increase the player base, kickstart the promised mods, and pray they are ever trusted by their playerbase again.