Max's addiction to painkillers has given him superpowers. He can bend time to the point that bullets might as well be frozen, rooms full of mercs and goons watching in slow-motion terror as he does a Matrix reload in front of them, his own bullets completely unaffected. And he does this over and over and over, room after room after room, to the point you might think that Max Payne 2 is just a tech demo for its new stupidly over-tuned bullet time and nothing more. Thankfully its story is less shallow than its combat, as the noir romance between hard-boiled detective and femme fatale is more interesting than the plot of the previous game. Rockstar's money certainly shows in the more professionally done comic panels this time around, which while lacking the amateurish charm of the original, definitely benefit from the use of actual actors as it greatly helps deliver the serious and brooding nature of its narrative. As great as Sam Lake's face is, the switch to McCaffery's makes total sense and he totally sells the misery and trauma of Max's character (which of course is only further benefited from his amazing voice). While I find Max Payne 2's gameplay far more repetitive and less engaging than the first, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't still fun, it's just that I'll be more likely to replay 1 or even 3 over this one.