As a massive Bioshock fan I have been hooked on metacritic for the last couple of weeks checking all the latest reviews, so far I believe the game has a overall score of 89 which clearly shows that Bio2 is a brilliant game and stands alone as one of the outstanding candidates for 2010 game of the year even at this early stage. Sadly due to financial constraints at this current time I have yet to purchase the game, after reading the reviews and watched countless video reviews of Bio2 I honestly cannot wait to rejoin the wonderfully fantastic underwater world of Rapture.

Anyway, I was wondering if there is anyone on here that has purchased or played the game and if so give me a brief account on their own opinion of the game

PS I will hopefully be purchasing the game in the next couple of weeks so don't make it sound all to amazing

I think Im part of the silent minority who really hated bioshock. I didn't see anything spectacular about it, aside from the graphics, at certainparts.

Same. It was pretty average, and could easily be beaten in a day.

Nah, I didn't think it was that great either. It seemed to me more like an art form than a really great and entertaining game.

Hell, not eve that. I think the whole "Bioshock is artistic" thing is exaggerated to the extreme. It had a nice style, sure, but everyone tries to act it's some amazing artistic experience... no. It's a run-of-the-mill shooter with super powers, diving suits, and the aforementioned nice style.

Now if they took something like Heavy Rain, perfected it, and implemented it with something like Bioshock, now THAT I would consider a kind of artistic experience.

I bought it not so long ago, not that far into it.

Have to say, it's pretty much just like the first Bioshock except for a few new cool things like the hacking gun and drill dashing.
It starts off pretty easy because you're a big daddy with a drill (one of the strongest attacks you can use) but by the third level things start to toughen up quite quickly. Once the Spider Splicers appear the game tends to get quite frantic at times. Also there's more mini bosses this time (not just several different Big Daddies but Big Sisters as well) and a lot more chances of getting loads of ADAM this time (you have several choices with the little sisters this time round, you can either harvest them or use them to get you more ADAM then decide to rescue or harvest them).
The guns are a bit meh this time around though - I've not seen anything interesting or cool yet but I'm not that far in. The plasmids are all the same to the last game's so far but they're all being introduced rather quickly so I'm
guessing the new cooler ones will be popping up later on in the game. Some of the gene tonics are pretty useful as well, you get loads more than you did in the other game too i think (well, I'm always running out of slots).
The way you have to progress through the game is still a bit tedious though - constant "Lets get Lamb - oh no there's a huge obstacle in the way we need to find a way past it for a whole level - same thing next level, joy" can get tiresome, especially after the first game did that all the time and made it feel like a chore at times (apart from the Sander Cohen level which was pretty fun).
Other than that though the game is pretty much what you'd expect for a sequel; same style, same way of progressing through levels, similar guns and a couple of cool new things like enemies, plasmids, levels and story.

From what I played of it, it was pretty amazing. I don't understand folks criticism in the way of; "We've been to rapture before, BORING!" yet eat up games such as Call of Duty, Halo, and the like, which are notorious for their 'been here done that' style of gameplay.. Just seems like a petty issue. The game is fantastic to look at, the combat is far smoother (the new plasmids are wonderful, updates to the original Bioshock Plasmids are pretty sweet as well).

It's just a great game all around, but of course there will always be haters, for one reason or another. All in all, they usually give the same trivial issues, it doesn't have any glaring flaws that subtract from the game-play or enjoyment. Just variations of taste.

I love bioshock 2. Its probably one of the most immersive games i've played in a while. The addition of traps like the speargun electric wires are a blast when your defending little sisters while they harvest. Just sit in the corner and the splicers drop like flies when they enter the room.

Those traps were in the first game too.

But the timed harvesting sequences are new and allow you to use them the way they should be used.

I actually bought the game yesterday and so far have thoroughly enjoyed it, the style of the game and the surroundings really are something to savor!

I like it, but I feel it's a bit TOO much like the original in some ways. I hope the third game rectifies this or moves back over to Irrational.

Being in halo or call of duty, you can have many different locales to place different levels of the game. Space, earth, alien planets, spaceships, indoor and outdoor environments, even different kinds of weather can effect the gameplay.
But when you are in an underwater city, the environments are pretty restricted, I found the environments of the first one pretty repetetive, so I can see where people are coming from.