I'm a huge fan of the first game so I was very much looking forward to the sequel. That being said - this game blew my expectations out of the water. The semi-open world works really, really well here and I felt the story was much better this time. It actually felt like a really modern Resident Evil 4. Lots of cheesy dialogue, lots of open areas. And it's scary too!

I highly recommend this game if you like horror games at all. This is one of the best ones I have played in a very long time. There's not much else to say here - one of the best games of the year in my opinion.

Update: Is it weird that I am approaching 50 hours in this game and I'm not even bored yet? Like how unexpected is that? To spend this much time in a game that's literally 22 hours long if you do pretty much everything it has to offer. The only thing I haven't done is grab a few of the achievements and beat it on the hardest difficulty. Not only is this probably my favorite game of the year so far (sorry Resi 7) but I think it's one of the biggest surprises of all-time. I loved the first game and even I didn't expect this one to be THIS good. It's quite an accomplishment. Here's hoping Tango surprise me even more with their next game.

Update #2: Approaching 60 hours with the game now and I still haven't gotten bored with it. I couldn't believe this didn't get nominated for anything at the Game Awards. This game is not only one of the best games of the year - it is now one of my favorite games of all time.