Ugh, where to begin. I really didn't like it! Not quite as much as I didn't like the first one, but that's saying next to nothing.

- Starting with the biggie - the story. Hey, check this out - it's an incredibly simple plot (with basic ass themes) told in the most deliberately abstruse way possible to pad it out, and which ends with no resolution whatsoever except for vague DLC/sequel bait. Quick, which Remedy game from the last fifteen years did I just describe? This house style of theirs REALLY bothers me at this point. Here, let me sum up the entire plot of this one for you:

>>Alan Wake, still trapped in a nightmare dimension following the end of the first game, has been replaced in the real world by an evil doppleganger who wants to destroy reality with a magical artifact. In an attempt to stop him, Alan makes contact with psychic FBI agent Saga Anderson and sets her on the double's trail so that she can stop him, but in so doing endangers Saga's family.<<

That's fucking it. But those two sentences are stretched out over twenty-five hours and buried under layer after layer after layer of pointless, self-indulgent obfuscation and repetition that exists to make it seem like there is a lot more going on. I find it so tiresome. And man, oh man, does this game feel long.

- Everything that's initially impressive about this game is really just fluff. Tons of cool metatextual bits and visually awesome effects and FMV and mixed media stuff (in Alan's story, especially) that is, on the surface, quite engaging - but it's not accomplishing anything! It's not saying anything new! It's not moving ANYTHING forward. It's JUST masturbation - grating even if you try to overlook how much writer Sam Lake himself is right there in the middle of it, in person. You can't just be weird and outre over and over just for the sake of it, it has to dooooooo somethinggggggg

- The combat is so bad it's baffling. Just don't have it if you can't even reach the standards of the (terrible) first game. (Seriously, just cut it! This thing is like 75% puzzle-adventure game/walking sim anyway. Just go all the way!) Nothing is balanced right, your character moves like they're underwater, all enemies are laughably spongey, you can get comboed to death in seconds with a full health bar, the dodge is SOMEHOW WORSE, and to top it off the autosave is allllllll over the place in this dumb game, so if you die (and you will) be prepared to pick up a bunch of shit over again. You can and indeed should run from most combat.

- This ostensible horror series has bravely graduated from having -literally no scares- to having ... jump scares! Tons of them! To the point where the characters voice their displeasure! Awesome.

- The woman playing Saga is flat and kinda bad I didn't buy her at all. Accent slipping all over the place, dead-eyed look the entire game (maybe a quirk of performance capture), weird line misreads. Just, nope. She doesn't have it. No juice.

- For the entire game, the emotional stakes of our player characters hinge upon threats against two of their loved ones who are people that we literally never see in person. I think you call that good storytelling.

- I like the conceit that our hero Alan is ultimately just a shitty writer and a self-centered asshole who constantly wrecks everything - that's great in theory - but that doesn't make LITERALLY RUNNING AROUND INSIDE HIS HEAD FOR TEN HOURS all that compelling

- Loads of bugs and glitches, ranging from distracting to annoying to gamebreaking. Trophies fucked up, items permanently lost, combat clipping into cutscenes leading to fail states during a chapter break, broken triggers, softlocks, fuckin seriously, you name it. Glad I paid full price for this digital-only game.

- Boy they sure have a lot of Finnish people and love their Finnish culture in this Pacific Northwest small town huh

Anyway, Remedy continues to frustrate the shit out of me. (I did enjoy CONTROL, but that was mostly for the excellent gameplay. It shares many of these same hallmark problems.) I really struggled with whether or not I was even gonna play this game after my painful run back through the remaster. And I'll tell you what, as of now I don't think you could pay me to play a sequel to this. These guys have so much potential and are thinking way outside of the box presentation-wise in ways that are really exciting. But they just cannot for the motherfucking life of them tell an actual story. I feel like someone much smarter than me could write about 50 pages on how they continually break every rule in the book, starting with not even coming close to having any kind of ending. Maybe after the astroturfed Sponsored by The Game Awards fellation period for this ends, someone will tackle it in earnest.

Meanwhile, it's Remedy who's still trapped in the REAL "Dark Place" ... lodged irretreivably up their own ass.