Recent reviews by Pug

Played around testing everything for about 15 minutes before I went into the first level. In the first level I was doing great, and enjoying it. At around the 15 minute mark in this shooter the boss began to spawn...and that's when the game totally froze.

Maybe it's too early to consider trying to access this game. :(

It's nice, but they haven't ported anything over in years. They seemed to have stopped development long ago, sadly.
Still, if you're a pinball fan, and have a VR headset, you'll enjoy jumping into this.

Please, Zen Studios, give us some more content.

In case you weren't aware: This game is great.

Fun gameplay. Great humor. Weapons all feel unique and special. Special skills (stratagems) are enjoyable.
Bonus fun when you play with almost anyone, and there's plenty of people online at any time to just jump in with.

The app is pretty simple to understand and use. There's some great DLC like the fractals magic forest to check out.
The developer is active, and was quick to respond to bugs and push out patches and updates software!

The FREE software (base software install) comes with content that you can use, and you might be happy with just the base content...the developer seems to be working on making more content right now and is releasing more and more optional DLC. Technically, you do have the ability to add your own video clips in the app if you wanted to take the time to chop up some clips. I tested it. Seems fine.

The software seems to pretty accurately match up the BPM with the music and adjusts as necessary. Plus there's some fine tuning options if needed (which I didn't need).

Even if you're not a DJ -- I'm not -- you can enjoy some great visuals with your music and just chill out to some fun visuals. Take a little trip and enjoy.

The AI doesn't communicate well with English, and the interactions require internet connectivity at all times, which for me was very slow to respond (with an occasional timeout error). While the main server seems to currently be in Singapore, the extensive Chinese programming is obvious.
Within 15 minutes my bot was telling me about the future of the world and Communism ruling the world in 2050...the persona claimed that no one country would lead the world at that time, but the bot said that fairness and quality would be required for everyone.

Never mind the terrible conversation...the English was often too hard to follow or disjointed. Words with contractions are a serious problem for the audio output too.
There's a lot of global computers that the software reaches out too...and I didn't take the time to determine what data it's transmitting out.

I'm glad they're not charging much for this broken software, but I can't recommend it.

This game now requires you to be online and proceeds to connect to about 30 servers globally. It's been a few months since I played it, so I don't know when the change came about, but I don't like it.

They did this game the right way!
This is finally THE Overwatch Killer we've all been waiting for! Marvel themed mayhem. Team tactics and interplay greatly encouraged. Forever battle pass is available and they don't expire once unlocked, so you can take a long break without any fear of missing out.
Each character (and there's already a ton) has their own unique play style and benefits. You'll surely find a few that suit your interests.

This game is a hit. And yes, with just 4 hours in, I've already dropped a bunch on cosmetics to customize my character's looks - but you can enjoy the game without spending a dime if that's your thing.

I highly recommend trying out the game. Big thumbs up and a hat tip to the development team and monetization planners.
Other Developers Should Take Notes!

UPDATE For The First Month Of Play:
After this first mini-season (Season 0) is now wrapping up. The gameplay is still very fun. The costumes are a bit pricey, but it's a free to play game, so they gotta make their money somewhere (other than just battle passes).
@Developers - Please REDUCE the clickable end-of-match highlight areas for each player OR make the upvote boxes much larger! I hate quickly trying to upvote a good player just to end up accidentally launching a gameplay highlight which take me into a 20-30 seconds loading loop with no immediate cancellation option.

This little gem surprised me. I hadn't heard anything about it and randomly ran across it, and I'm glad I picked it up!

The game play loop is easy and quick, but that doesn't mean it's not fun. It's easy to pick up and spend some time in, but thankfully the short levels make the growth and development not fee like a chore. There are some unexpected gameplay twists, like how your team members can get captured and you have to go rescue them, but the game is actually enjoyable. The items interacting with your unique team members (for better or worse) really should encourage you to think before you act...for example instead of dropping a gun I hastily threw it against a wall when using a character which throws so hard he can kill someone, and of course died causing the failure of the mission.

If you're on the fence - jump! Buy the game.

Really enjoyable game play. If you have any interest in card games like poker and rogue-like games, this game will scratch whatever itch you have. Very casual and fun to play.

I see the advice online that you can stop Epic's Online Service from running, using these steps:
Go to X:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Dead Island 2\
Delete the EpicOnlineServices folder
Open the "DeadIsland.ini" file change "NoOperation=0" to "NoOperation=1"
Go to X:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Dead Island 2\Engine\Binaries\ThirdParty\
Delete the EOS folder

...BUT while this does get rid of MOST of the Epic connectivity, I want you all to know that the main executable will still spawn an Epic bootstrapper AFTER you close the game! Yes, the developers put in a sneaky little Hail Mary for Epic to continue to get their data.

The executable file X:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Dead Island 2\deadisland.exe
will spawn the Epic Online Services Bootstrapper automatically shortly after you exit the game...
Even after you delete the EpicOnlineServices folder, it STILL will connect to Epic Games over port 443 (HTTPS encrypted) and send sensitive data about your gameplay session! The specific subdomain(s) under EPICGAMES [.] COM Dead Island 2 sends the data to depends on your geographic location.

The most common way to block that (for now - as this could change after the developers see this) is to use your OS's firewall or HOSTS file to block the EPICGAMES [.] COM domain.

The game is fun, but Epic Games sucks and their bloatware/spyware is unwelcome by most of the Steam community. The full year hold away from Steam was bad enough, and the developers want the dirty Epic money to still keep rolling in from coding a little backdoor loophole to allow Epic to still collect data about you? No. Fix your game. Stop spawning Epic spyware processes even after the game has closed. The Steam community waited a full year to get this on Steam to avoid having Epic's trash on our computers. Stop all these the anti-consumer practices!

Please note that this will restrict you to only being able to play single player, but you'll be able to play the game that you paid for. While someone might say "but I could just unplug my internet and play" - yeah, sure. But not everyone wants to lose internet, and who is to say that the process spawned even once you edit the game won't sit and wait for a connection to send data?


EDIT: I "removed the link" to the Epic Games domain that was being got administratively removed days after the review was posted..