Uncharted 2 is held back by outdated, monotonous and restrictive design and shallow and boring gameplay.
Uncharted 2 is steeped in archaic PlayStation One era design and it truly feels like such a game. At every single point, you are completely aware that you are playing a game, it leads you exactly where you have to go, there is no deviation from what the game wants you to do with rules that don't make absolutely any sense. You can never do something on your own or try tackling a situation in a way that the game didn't predict. You're playing a game and Uncharted 2 will never allow you to think anything else.
The player takes over the role of Nathan Drake, an ancient artifact hunter who finds himself chasing a magical stone with great power located in Shangri-la. It's a ridiculous story filled with every cliche you can possibly imagine including Yetis and Nazis. It is decently written and although the characters are as one-dimensional as it gets, the voice acting is terrific.
The controls are not very good, they feel loose and it manifests the most during the combat sections which are, by far, the worst part of the game. The gunplay feels weak and unsatisfying, the weapons are imprecise and lack punch, the cover system is unintuitive and the friendly AI is worthless. The enemy AI is decent, they will take cover and try to flush you out with grenades, but they will also often idiotically rush straight at you.
The platforming sections feel better, but the controls are far from tight. As most of the game, they're also filled with supposedly tense sequences which fall completely flat seeing as how nothing can happen to you, the game will patiently wait for you to get to a safe section before it initiates the fall of a bridge, for example. And there's loads of such sequences in Uncharted 2. Everything you can possibly imagine will crumble, break down, explode, fall apart, you name it. It's a Michael Bay movie on acid. And yet it all somehow manages to be as predictable and boring as possible.
The game also offers some puzzles, but these are all braindead crate-pushing affairs that serve absolutely no purpose. There are also some terrible stealth sections in which you can crouch right next to an enemy and they'll be completely oblivious of your presence.
What Uncharted 2 does right is the variety and pacing. Just when you're tired or bored of one element, it's time for another. This is put together very well. Unfortunately, it's a bit moot since most of it is boring from the start, the gameplay simply doesn't have the strength to carry the design, which is especially apparent during the gunplay sections which feature a neverending army of goons.
The graphics are good, but not consistently so. The static environments looks great, but the quality drops off during certain action setpieces. Some of the textures are awful as is the foliage, the lighting and shadowing system is terrible and the backdrops are completely static. You can stare at the clouds for hours, but they won't move an inch. The locations are mostly wonderful and exotic, rarely explored in video games such as Borneo, Tibet, Nepal and Istanbul.
In the end, there is some enjoyment to be had in Uncharted 2 in an infantile kind of way, but it's all held back by outdated, monotonous and restrictive design and shallow and boring gameplay.