im really conflicted about this game. on one hand, the combat is a great step up from the first game. its much harder, however the gunplay is much cleaner, theres more merit to using different weapons, and overall its just a more polished experience. despite all this, the story is just so much worse in my opinion. it never really grasped me the same way max payne 1 did, but i will admit this is mostly because i dislike the romance between mona and max. in the first game it was clear they had a history, but max wasnt interested. here it feels like they did a 180 and max is obsessed with mona and it just left a bad taste in my mouth. overall, this game probably is better than max payne 1, but the story of 1 felt so much more interesting and intriguing to me that i cant justifiably give this game a higher score.