Death Row is short but sweet. It’s pretty well-designed, looks great, and has no major stand-out issues. However, it's also very easy (even moreso than a vanilla campaign), and makes no attempt to surprise you in any way.

No Mercy from Left 4 Dead 1 appears to have been a heavy inspiration for this Custom Map, as the first and last Chapters’ overall designs are highly similar (with some extra Blood Harvest elements at the end of Chapter 2).

The only minor nitpicks I have is that there was some improper invisible wall usage on Chapter 1 (IE above some of the cars and such), and there’s nothing that really makes this map stand out amongst the crowd at the present time.

The prison locale on Chapter 3 that Death Row derives its name from was interesting and all, but it’s a small area and a short Chapter, and nothing significant or surprising happens within it (not even a Crescendo). Thus making the prison just feel like just more of the same gameplay-wise.

The relative difficulty of Death Row is lowered significantly as a result of there being no Alarm Cars, only a single Crescendo event (at an Alarm Door midway into Chapter 2), and the map being fairly generous with supplies (especially x4 Magnum pickups right in the starting area, absurd amounts of Ammo Piles all over the place, and bombs).

However, this lack of difficulty is made up for somewhat by there always being a random Tank on Chapters 1-3, as well as many Witches (1-3 on each of the first 3 Chapters on our playthrough).

The inclusion of many Tanks, Witches, and close-quarters areas notably results in the Autoshotguns being uniquely powerful on Death Row, as long as you know how to Cr0wn Witches reliably.

Death Row’s Chapter 4 Finale is an easy and basic Defend-Tank-Defend-Tank set in the prison’s courtyard, which oddly has many small buildings and a grain silo placed inside of it.

The Finale area is set up similarly to the roof of No Mercy, minus the potential for you to fall off the sides of the roof.

We simply held atop the roof of the central building with the Ammo Pile, First Aid Kits, and mounted gun on our playthrough, threw lots of the Pipe Bombs provided on the pipe-linked rooftop next to ours, and had no issues.

This Finale also notably has at least one god spot where the Common Infected can’t reach you, on top of the electrical box on the central building’s roof. You can get on top this by jumping from the railing of the nearby staircase. Just be sure to watch for Smokers trying to pull you off of it, as it’s very exposed.

Ultimately, Death Row is a quality-made little Custom Map, however, it doesn’t have enough uniqueness, intrigue, or challenge for me to be able to rate it higher than a 7.5/10 for Quality of gameplay, at the present time.


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Warhawk's Expert Custom Map Reviews For L4D2 

By: Warhawk

My Expert Custom Map Reviews collection is my personal early Christmas 2023 gift to the whole Left 4 Dead 2 community. -Features ~6 dozen thoughtfully written reviews.