I'm a HUGE fan of the 1st game, and while part 2 is good it falls short in many ways.
I was really disappointed to see that they removed a lot of the stuff that made the 1st one so good. The puzzle solving elements are straight removed, the hardest puzzle you will solve consists of ripping apart an electrical box and slashing the wires to open a door. They also removed the semi open world from the 1st and replaced it with a straight linear one that has no venturing off the beaten path. They took out the side quests and there is only one section that lets you do 2 mini games to impress a fellow mob boss instead. They removed the multiple different darklings and made it so only 1 follows you and you don't get to summon him at will. Lastly the long campaign of the first has been replaced with a measly 5-8 hour one. Overall all the great things in the 1st game are simply gone and this one felt like a dumbed down version as if it should've been the first game and the original should've been the more evolved better experience.
That's not to say the Darkness 2 sucks. It's strong point once again is the story which is really good. This game questions whether the darkness is really a demon inside of Jackie or if he is just crazy and the "darkness" is just the evil inside of him making him kill all these people. It even questions whether any of Jackie's life is real or if hes just crazy and all of the mob related stuff in his life is his delusion. Instead of sending you to Hell like in the 1st game, this one sends you to a really cool unique version of Hell that I won't ruin. I really really like the story.
The combat is fun and better than the first, however it gets very repetitive fast. The enemies aren't varied and though the boss battles are cool, they aren't very hard. This game isn't easy but even on the hardest difficulty it's not really hard either.
The multiplayer is fun, but will get old quick. You can do this really lame thing where you can just press a single to button to execute an enemy and gain some health. Everyone seems to do that, making it no challenge what so ever.
They achievements are cake and I managed to get all 1000 within 2 days.
The Darkness 2 is nothing like the first but even though it's so disappointing to a true Darkness fan it will still manage to be worth the time invested.
Graphics- The new look of the game is awesome, any true comic book fan will love it. It's extremely detailed in a strange way. I can honestly say its the weirdest combo I have seen, where things that are cell shaded still manage to look realistic rather than cartoony. Parts of the world like bricks on a wall look hand sketched which I really enjoyed.
Sound- Great voice acting, great sound effects when you are dismembering your foes.
Gameplay- Fun but simplistic. I wish they would've evolved the game more here, adding a large world with destructible environments. The combat is good but repetitive.
Overall I vote renting this one, you can beat it in one sit down and experience the awesome story. This is a good game but I really wanted more out of it.