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Generally well made, but bland. 4/5 stars.

For the first time ever, I'm redoing a campaign review because my opinion has changed enough to warrant dropping a star. Everything I said in my original review of Death Row is still mostly true — it looks good and plays well without any parts that are overly frustrating or confusing. The highlight is easily the Map 3 prison, which is the mod's most unique location.

But I realize now that there's not nearly enough uniqueness here to make it a 5-star mod. There's only one room with custom graffiti and there's no scripted dialogue — not even a message on the radio when you start the finale. Environments are mostly stuff you've seen before, which would be forgivable if they were fun to navigate, but the level design flip flops between being too open and empty or too cramped and awkward. Supplies are also constrained in a way that's more boring than it is challenging.

Overall, this mod gets the basics right, but it needs more personality and polish.

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Consistently high quality to the point it feels official. 5/5 stars.

I'm absolutely astounded Death Row is a decade-old campaign from a first-time mapper. This campaign has excellent aesthetics and optimization that match or excel what you'd expect from an official Valve map. The level design is also terrific, hitting that Left 4 Dead sweet spot where environments feel expansive without being maze-like thanks to smartly blocking off unnecessary corridors.

Theming is good too, with the prison in Map 3 being this campaign's highlight, although things can feel a little too "standard" sometimes due to a lack of dialogue and no custom graffiti (that I found) until Map 4. Still, this is easy to forgive when the campaign flows so smoothly. My only other nitpick is that item spawns are SLIGHTLY too low, but that does have the benefit of making the experience more intense without feeling unfair.

Overall, this is premium Left 4 Dead junk food and worth an hour of your time. Download it!

More reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2264239411