Darksiders II boasts exciting hack and slash action, but more importantly creates an exciting storybook esque adventure.
Many games also forget that stories don't have to be complex to be great. While Deus Ex: Human Revolution has one of the best and most complex stories in games (it is also one of my all time favorite games), it is the exception, not the rule. Games leave me trying to juggle characters and factions way too much, and the actual plot becomes a sideshow. Darksiders II definitely does not do that. You will meet about 15 other characters maximum in the game that have even the slightest backstory, and even then you will never care about them. There is only one plot twist in the entire story (it has to do with a queen, you'll know it when you get there) and it is very unimportant. That being said, the story is incredibly fun in that Greek Myth kind of way. Ridiculous, simple, and fun. The plot is a little (very little, for some reason) character with great power fighting impossible forces. There is little complexity in this, which is great.
The whole game create the feeling that great things await for you to do, which is why partly why it succeeds as an adventure. The other part is what you have to do to do such great things. Another thing that has disappeared from games: boss battles. Somewhere along the line games decided giant apparitions attacking in patterns with a gazillion HP were outdated and overused. I personally, have no problem with the stereotypical bosses. Darksiders II does bosses to perfection. My favorite boss is a giant construct thing that you literally have to climb up 20 stories to slash in the shoulder blades to kill. If that's not your idea of fun, I don't know what is.
Gigantic bosses and scale aside, Darksiders II does very good things with gameplay. Believe it or not, Darksiders II is (almost) as much puzzle as it is fighting. You gain up to 4 gadgets at a time, which range from guns to clones to summoning ancient ghost kings. While these gadgets have some use in battle ( I wish they had more), they mostly are used for puzzles. Most puzzles are "how to get there dungeons", which basically means the objective is to pull a level to get to some area. I wish the objectives were a little more diverse, but generally the game mixes its Prince of Persia Parkour with the gadgets to make every puzzle new and challenging. More importantly is the combat. You, like many games, have a primary weapon, which is your trademark Scythes of Death, and a secondary weapon which is either a big, high damage heavy weapon or quick claws. I don't understand the claws/arm blades, since they generally don't compliment the fast scythes as slow weapons do and serve as just a better version of the scythes. Either way, the combination of you scythes and secondaries make Death able to pull of some dominating combos. Like Darksiders I, you can finish opponents off with flare with finishing moves, but it is much better in this version since they are spread out enough so they are harder and more satisfying to execute. Also, it is important to note that all attacks and combos are not immediately available, which makes progressing in the game more fun. Which each level you advance, you get a skill point which can be attributed to two magical skill trees, Necromancer and Harbinger. While Necromancer is probably the better skillset, since it makes other, powerful creatures do your work with you, Harbinger brings even cooler scythe attacks to make the game more fun. Your last skill is Reaper Form in both trees, which turns you in to a nigh indestructible beast who kills all immediately. While this feature is nice, it has such a low duration you end up frantically clicking rather than trying to plan your attacks in order to dish out enough damage.
Another important aspect of an adventure game: loot and enemies. Darksiders II does these exceptionally and fairly well, respectively. Loot is incredibly common, and almost every enemy you kill drops loot. Generally, dropped goods aren't very useful, unless it is a boss who drops it, but there is a slight chance a basic grunt will drop an all dominating weapon. Also, there are treasure chests strewn about visibly on the map, which always contain loot worth trying to get. These are always guarded by enemies or blocked by very challenging puzzles, so you will need to work for it. There are also various merchants and trainers which will sell you new gear and attacks. Two merchants in particular are different. One, named Vulgrim will sell you random boxes with random things inside them. More importantly, he sends you on a sidequest to achieve "pages of the dead' Upon finding 10 pages of the dead in any order, which are strewn across different realms and are not on the map, Vulgrim will give you a key to a whole vast new dungeon. It feels like you are actually earning new DLC by getting these pages. There is also another Merchant who sends you on a quest in the kingdom of the dead to find relics left by his ancestors, which he gives you incredibly powerful items as an incentive. What ties the loot all together is a great "possessed weapons system", which allows you to use unused loot towards upgrading certain weapons. The enemies are good in some occasions, but not others. Character design is great, no doubt about it, at least for bigger enemies. I got a little tired of the same old skeletons and fire dogs after a while. Also, there is nothing in the field of AI. While I am fine with patterned bosses, AI blindly swinging at you gets very old, very quickly. However, there are a large variety of enemies which require different approaches, and in the best cases different gadgets. When these enemies are involved, fights become more exciting.