Picture yourself designing a game where it takes double-digit hours before the game becomes remotely challenging or interesting.

Many reviews have noted how brainless Vermintide 2 is. There's veracity to such claim, because it's true on the lower difficulties. It speaks to how needlessly prolonged and detrimental the progression system is, causing people to abandon the game before nigh everything which makes the game fun to play can be experienced. Things like monsters, dangerous elite enemies, hordes the size where they can pose a real threat, ect... are locked behind a difficulty level not immediately accessible. It's understandable why a game wouldn't swarm a new player with everything all at once, but, apparent by the reception, the training wheels stay on far too long.
Which is a great shame, because the game is amazing. Playing through the (rather large pool of) maps with different characters will make for a completely different playstyle and role in the team. There's a real learning curve in mastering each class' specific abilities. The way the classes are set-up demands teamwork. On the highest difficulties, failure is always a couple mistakes away. The characters are charming and well-written, with several hours of recorded banter between them. The narrative takes the world of Warhammer sincerely. The game is littered with small attentions to detail that show the developers adore their own game. Audio integration into useful gameplay information is immaculate - among the best in any game I've played. The pacing of the levels is superb; the escape sequences being particularly memorable. The developers have created a great deal of new levels years after launch free of charge, as well as an entirely new rouge-lite game mode. One can hop on and experiment with new ways to approach the same level, even after hundreds of hours.

Vermintide II leaves a lukewarm impression, but is immensely gratifying beyond the surface.

The classic Contra short & sweet, but both shorter & less sweet.

"What if we made a fun little battlefield sandbox the feels like toy army men come to life. But, instead of having a reasonable progression system, we force the player to pick up random crap in the middle of a warzone, and run multiple couple minute detours back to base if he wants to use more than 4 basic weapons?"
It's a charming concept with fun to be had, but, once the initial appeal chaffs thin, you're left a game of bewildering design choices.

Excellent game for revealing that your dpad doesn't perform diagonal inputs well.

He sailed for IVDEA, followed by 12 legions...

Pros: You can play as Zero for more than 0.2 consecutive seconds. Most upgrades no longer require beating half the game to unlock.

Cons: In all other regards, it is still X3

Inti Creates might be the master at crafting fantastic games, then hampering them with the most confounding, pernicious, thoughtless, counter-productive, anti-fun design decisions.

Consider this, Zero 2's newest addition: EX skills. These are widely derivative of Zero's moves from the Rockman X series. In those games, you simply obtained new moves after defeating the corresponding boss. In Zero 2, you obtain EX skills by defeating a boss with an A or S rank, but not the rank acquired on the current stage (that would be too simple), but rather whatever your rank was the previous stage. By the time you've obtained an A-rank on every stage for the EX skill, you certainly proven you don't need these skills, and have likely played the game enough.
Simple things such as health upgrades fall against the same hurdle, unnecessary gatekeeping. In the X series you found a health upgrade. Your health was then increased. In Zero 2 you find a health upgrade, take it back to base, feed it energy crystals (should you have enough in the first place), transfer it from one menu to another, then you can finally improve your HP a solid 4 pixels. This feels like X5 syndrome all over again.

And you will need those health upgrades because, dear God, why. At the start of the game Zero can be described as a glass canon, minus the latter part, stemming from his pitful damage and dearth of moves. Basic attacks like charging the buster or swinging Zero's saber more than once need to be unlocked. It's MUCH briefer unlocking moves than it was in the first game, but... that just highlights how Inti Creates recognised what a pointless hassle it was. Why keep it? For the love of Ciel do not pick Flaming Flamingo as your first boss. Fighting a potential first boss should not be more difficult than all the end-game bosses. For a game which splits the Rockman series' traditional 8-stage layout into two-halves, why is (by far) the most difficult boss & stage in the first half? Fervent Falcon is even one of the better bosses in the series, he's just set horridly early. Potentially running into him before Zero musters up the immense dexterity to swing his sabre twice in a row is a recipe for agony.

The game's hard, but that's not really the problem. On my recent playthrough, I didn't die until an insta-kill in the boss rush. These are still issues. Locking out so much that makes the game fun to play is simply baffling. The problems don't cease there.
Some sections of the game just flat-out suck. There's no elegant way to say Inti Creates should've deleted spikes from their level editor. I love Frost Kibatodos' theme Ice Brain, but his stage is about negotiating ice physics with bizarre momentum, avoiding accelerating at high velocity into a spiked wall within the purview of a squashed GBA screen. A few stages (such as the train and Sake Harpoon's) are interesting in concept, but more tedious to play for not evolving much behind the concept. I'm convinced Power Room (more accurately called Pain Room) was Inti Creates way of deliberately demoralising the player. Coincidentally this is also Fervid Falklanders' stage.

Despite the amount of bullshit fitted onto an 8MB cartridge, I still am fond of Zero 2. There's a lot of love. Theming the stages as missions is a great way to inject a feeling of purpose into them, as well as affording some in-stage objectives. Every boss feels ground-up built to be a unique encounter, rather than designed from some generic template (though admittedly a couple of them don't mesh well with the aforementioned small screen estate of the GBA), and the end result is a game surging with memorable boss fights. The chain rod opens paths for unorthodox platforming challenges, and surprising works well. You can even skip entire portions when you acclimate yourself to the rhythm of the weapon. The story & setting are leagues above the X-series. While the X-series was content to pit X against Sigma and his latest Hollywood-induced weapon fascination that week, followed by X staring into the sunset, the Zero series has real emotional pieces. It's not particularly incredible, but it's competent. The game might be worth completing solely for the end credit's theme, Awakening Will. In a franchise renowned for its music, Awakening Will is one of its best songs (give a listen to the official remastered version if you've already beat the game https://youtu.be/rDHSYrkHIFU).

There's a lot to love about Rockman Zero 2; there's a lot to despise about Rockman Zero 2. Even if someone patched the game so the distribution of EX & weapon skills less stupid, and Cyber Elves less grindy, the game would still have annoying shortfalls. It's less a diamond in a rough, more a ruby someone flung poop upon for no good reason. Despite my predisposition toward games of this nature and this series, it's a tough sell. I like it. I also acknowledge it can be total horse shit. Inti Creates created Zero 2 in one year. And while the only thing I can make in a year is failed New Year's resolution, that doesn't excuse all the problems present.

Sonic can't breath underwater, but can in outerspace? Immersion shattered. -1 star.

The critical flaw of the X-series was its lack of excessive grinding. Glad Inti Creates rectified this.

Nails the comic book aesthetic along with a great, pure 90's soundtrack, but becomes extremely repetitious rather quick. You'll fight every boss in the game at least three times; twice you fight the entire ensemble altogether.
The gameplay has some damning issues. Bosses can break out of hitstun seemingly randomly. You're never sure if you can connect a full combo, or if the boss will interrupt you mid-string. Before the halfway point you'll have fought every enemy in the game, and the game just repeats the same enemy layouts thenceforth. Sometimes the game moronically obscures the screen with foreground elements.
Maximum Carnage is not terrible. Spiderman/Venom have a sufficient moveset. The hitboxes on their jump moves could be better, and grab & throw animations having no sort of i-frames is awful, but their attack repertoire & mobility are quite fun to use. They have options to chase, bind, wall cling, various air options, and more. The only thing perhaps missing would be some z-axis evasive option like a quickstep or roll. The critical problem really just lies in how the game quickly falls apart 20-minutes in with its repeating structure. There is little motivation to continue playing when your reward for pressing forward is fighting a lacklustre boss from 10-minutes prior, yet again.

If you wish to play Maximum Carnage, play the SNES version as it contains the better music & SFX, but I'd forgo playing this one entirely.

Would be a great game if a third of the levels weren't handed off to the underpaid intern team

It was written by a guy who thought cuckoldry would save his failed marriage.

They put instakill platforming sections in a beat 'em up.
You can tell Konami tried to be creative with some of the bosses & levels. There's even a batmobile stage. However, it's generally a mundane affair due to the limited pool of enemies and Batman's moveset. It's just not particularly exhilarating, exhausting itself before the end of each playthrough. Maybe if Konami had taken more liberties from the movie it would've been more interesting. Not offensively terrible, just boring.

It's kinda like a lesser 4chan thread. Funny at first, but after the shock humour wears off it unnecessarily drags, becomes repetitive, and I'm left wondering what I masturbated to.
Edit: Lol of course the furry above would call the game racist