Fun at first but once the story starts getting old and the repetitive game play starts to ware, there's not much left
The story for Dog Days is a seedy underworld tale of gangsters in Shanghai. The main characters, Kane and Lynch, quickly get tangled up on the wrong side of the gangsters and chaos ensues. The story is probably one of the more interesting parts of the game if you're into buddy, crime flicks.
In Dog Days the controls and shooting mechanics have been significantly improved over the first Kane and Lynch game. Shooting and aiming is tighter this time and enemies are more easily targeted. Moving in and out of cover is easily done. Some cover elements in the game are destructible but most things that should explode or break does not. Also gas cans and tanks take the place of grenades as you can pick them up and throw then shoot them to cause explosions that can take out several enemies.
The graphics are a little below standard fare and the shaky, old film look of the visuals is a double edged sword. On one hand the shaky, old film look pulls you into the action at first. However about halfway through the games story mode it became an unwelcome distraction. Luckily there is an option to steady the camera in the options menu which helped out a lot. But when you get a good look at the graphics the character models are substandard at best. Hair is stiff and sold as if it is made of one piece, even when the characters are running or turning their heads. This really shows on the Lynch character since you play as him for most of the game. Also most of the time the characters mouths either didn't move or match up completely with dialogue when speaking, it is more difficult to notice when the shaky, old film camera is on since it covers up most of these flaws.
Level design is very basic and levels tend to be linear with the slight illusion of openness. The game will funnel down corridors toward the end of the area at which point you will proceed to the door leading to the next area, repeat until the end of the game, save for one on-rails shooter area. Its sometimes difficult to tell which door leads out of some of the larger rooms, but there is a hint system that will point you towards the door.
The enemies you will face throughout game are very limited. There are probably three different kinds of enemies with three different skins per enemy type (four if you count helicopters). Enemy AI is also very dumb and enemies will run into fire, hide on the wrong side of boxes, shoot in the wrong direction during fire fights, and so on. Also, Stealth elements of the game are broken, as your AI partner will always alert enemies and give away your position usually leading to instant death situations when you don't even have a weapon to defend yourself, since at certain points of the game your weapons will be removed.
Overall, Dog Days is a bit fun at first but once the story starts getting old and the repetitive game play starts to ware, there's not much left to do except to go online and play multiplayer.