Fresh return to the WWII genre, but like its predecessors, it lacks depth.
Firstly, don't bother playing this on anything other than the hardest difficulty, or at least go via custom selection and turn off all aim assist. It's the only way to experience the game properly without it becoming too repetitive.
The graphics are fine and sound design, and music could be better and doesn't really do enough to help build tension. AI leaves a lot to be desired, soldiers can run around aimlessly at times, then on other levels, snipe you consecutively from 200m the very instant you reveal yourself - leaving you to constantly restart until you can somehow get the drop on them.
Storyline is where I think the game fails the most. Again we see a tried and tested cliche-ridden narrative that is hardly worth paying attention to and a real failure to create a true immersive environment (seriously, what is he doing in US uniform?). Berlin at this time of the war was utter chaos - Hitler youth were defending the city with manic loyalty, SS were killing any males who refused or avoided fighting, Russian were pillaging, raping (ok, this couldn't be shown in a game) en-mass and shelling the city to hell-and-gone. Yet we don't see a single civilian in the game, not a corpse in the street - barely a sign of life other than the soldiers we shoot.
This isn't just common for SEV2, pretty much all WWII game avoid the uncomfortable issue of the civilians - with the exception of Brothers In Arms:HH. I think it's yet again a missed opportunity to transport players into the darkness of these times, it's as though a whole other dimension to the game has been unfortunately left out. I think there's a responsibility when making a game based on history, to try and reach a level of authenticity. Imagine what it would have been like as a sniper going from house to house, passing terrified families, making choices to intervene or stay on mission when war crimes are about to be committed, walking through corpse-ridden streets, getting intel from civilians (the sniper should have been in civilian clothes and German speaking at least).
Again it's another game aimed at 15-year-olds who care not for depth, just bullet-time. A whole other layer is missed in a genre that is just begging for us to be transported back to these dark days but with a real layer of authenticity that raise the emotional stakes of the game and serve as a truly motivating element. Yet we're handed another Hollywood style narrative by guys who have gotten their entire WWII history from Saving Private Ryan.
I rank this similar to The Saboteur, a game I loved and was a lot of fun, but failed to represent the darkness of the times in which it was set.
And to digress - we're long overdue for a full-on, 3rd person, open-world, WWII game. I'm thinking D-Day and battle for Normandy. Forget FPS, i think it's gone as far as it can in the WWII genre. Third person leaves so much more room for story-building and that's the only thing that will bring people back to WWII.
As a game, SEV2 is so much fun to play - which should always be it's main goal. And I feel is succeeds greatly. It's a lot of fun with some very tense moments.
But I can't shake the disappointment at another WWII game that could have been so much more, had one of the developers picked up a Max Hastings book, or watched a Laurence Rees documentary.