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The Darkness II is a great time overall.
The combat has been greatly improved over the original. The controls are much smoother, the aiming isn't reliant on auto-aim in order for you to hit anything. The weapons feel a lot more impactful in both visuals and sound design and the powers of The Darkness are a lot more fun to use as they are more practical for gameplay. Being able to freely swing around the tendrils of The Darkness until the enemy in front of your is nothing but severed limbs is immeasurably satisfying. Plus performing execution movies where Jackie does a fully animated kill of the enemy not only is satisfying but useful for gameplay since the game gives you the option to regain health, ammo, The Darkness powers, or a shield. You can choose whichever one is more useful to you in the moment. Plus you can through objects at enemies to impale or explode them. Level design is pretty good too with plenty of spread out cover, good sightlines for the player to take advantage of and multiple flanking routes for both the player and the enemy. The gameplay is rock solid.
I'll avoid spoilers and keep this brief: The storytelling in this game is brilliant. Almost every line of dialogue is funny, memorable and well voice acted. I do wish there were more of Jackie's monologue's throughout the game as they add further insight into his mentality of being a brutish jerk but with strong values in regards to friends and family. His constant struggle with The Darkness is engaging to see as he's fully aware of the consequences of his goals but he still fights to see them through regardless. His characterisation is closer to the comics which somehow doesn't feel disjointed. In the first game Jackie mostly comes off as calm under pressure, but after 2 years it makes sense that his demeanor will have changed given the life he's lived. The other characters are well executed too with memorable personalities and interactions. Plus, Mike Patton as The Darkness will always be a gem.
However, I am severely disappointed that the game has completely abandoned the adventure game style structure of the first game. In The Darkness (2007), the levels weren't isolated locations. The game had Jackie exploring interconnected levels in the suburbs of New York with collectables, character conversations and side missions scattered around. Anything from delivering a letter from a deceased WWII veteran to his wife, helping a woman deal with her abusive boyfriend, talking to a man who just wanted to play his guitar in the subway but security won't let him, taking hits on criminals in specific parts of the city. Some requiring you to traverse through different neighbourhoods or to the next train station to get to. And as you made your way through the game it would open up new locations, pathways or shortcuts. It made it feel like an actual world you were travelling through that had real people going about their lives. Plus you could continue to interact with these people even after finishing their side missions. Not to mention the smaller details such as the phone lines you could call, or the televisions which had full feature-length films you could watch on them. The Darkness II, doesn't have any of that. It's an entirely linear FPS game. Inbetween levels you visit your penthouse which allows you to talk to characters, view artefacts or do minigames such as shooting bottle or birds, but none of these can replace the world of the original game. I don't think linear game design is bad, but the non-linear structure of The Darkness (2007) is what made it such a unique experience that stood out from a lot of other games in the genre. So to see it removed just sucks. It makes the sequel less unique.
The visual design I'm mixed on. Whilst I do like the graphic novel cel-shaded style of the sequel, I do miss the high contrast light and dark look of the original game which usually used very flat colours mixed with harsh shadows to create a very imposing aesthetic. The second game does have high contrast but it's usually mixed with other colours such as purple or red. I do think it works really well, especially considering the fact that this game takes more inspiration from the comics, but part of me misses the old look.
Soundtrack wise I'm also disappointed. The music isn't bad, but one of the tracks aside from the ending track are memorable. Most of the music I remember from this game is licensed songs which were cool and fit the scenes, but the original music for the game doesn't stick out. I miss the heavy metal tracks that would play during the combat during the first game.
In terms of extras, there is a Vendettas co-op campagin which allows you to play as 4 unique characters that use different powers of The Darkness. It's a fun campaign but it is only around 2-3 hours long. So don't expect much longevity out of it. In fact the Main Campaign is only 6 hours long. However, there is New Game+ and Chapter Select so you can carry across your upgrades. 90% of the cutscenes are skippable as well so it's a very replayable game. The short length doesn't bother me much since I got this game for dirt cheap but if you paid full price for this game, I can see why you would be annoyed at finishing the game in one or two sittings.
Overall, The Darkness II is a great game with fantastic combat & and a very engaging narrative. I just wish they expanded upon the unique structure of the first game more instead of making it a linear FPS.
Hopefully we'll see The Darkness III someday.