(Before I start, I admit that I have not finished Hotline Miami 2. I played enough of the game to know that I could not continue.)

I like Hotline Miami a lot.

Now, I'm not crazy obsessed with it...I think. I haven't done a Hotline Miami cosplay (yet?) and I'm not here to share my 20 thinkpieces I've written about it. But it was by far my favorite game of 2012 because at the time, I'd never played anything like it.

Each level of Hotline Miami is a thrilling action puzzle, supplemented by the fact that you could choose a different power with the variety of masks. If you want to play run-and-gun, sure. If you want to be patient and take out mobsters one by one by baiting and luring, it allowed that too.

Not only that, but what really drew me into Hotline Miami were the story and themes. It's still one of the VERY few video games I can recall with a unpretentious critique of violent media as part of the plot. They don't draw a line about if your character or yourself are a bad person. Violence is prevalent in video games, movies, and television and it's impossible to escape. It's entertaining. Is it bad to be entertained by violence? Is your character a psychopath or the hero? What the hell happened in those Biker levels anyway and who actually died?

Reading through fan theories and analyzing the story and themes of Hotline Miami were just as much fun for me as playing it. The game is the total package and remains one of my favorites of all time.

Which is why I'm so disappointed in Hotline Miami 2, which is not even half as good as the first game.

Hotline Miami came out around the same time of Super Meat Boy and other “ultra-hard” games and was kind of lumped into that trend. It was very difficult, but fair and catered to multiple playstyles due to the unique abilities of each mask. For the early parts of Hotline Miami 2, I was getting exactly what I wanted: more maps, more masks with new abilities, an incredible soundtrack, and the same pulse-pounding gameplay that hooked me in the first place.

But then I started losing. A lot. Like, more times than I died in Hotline Miami in the comparable early stages. I understand spiking up the difficulty for the sequel, but these deaths felt cheap and unavoidable.

The maps are incredibly huge compared to Hotline Miami 2. This leads to my problem of getting shot across the map from a guy I can't see.

There's windows all over the maps and enemies so far away that you can't even move the screen far enough to see them. So on the stage I just linked, I kept getting shot over and over from people I couldn't shoot back...either I couldn't see them, or random bits of furniture got in the way and it's VERY UNCLEAR what furniture you can shoot over or through!

My character has “Lethal Throws” that make any thrown item kill instead of knock down. But I am basically being forced to use guns because there are too many enemies to actually use my special ability on.

I'm not allowed the strategy I was in Hotline Miami 1. I'm not personally a fan of using guns, but you GOTTA use guns in Hotline Miami 2. YOU MUST. You use guns, or you die and if you don't like guns deal with it. So the “combat puzzles” that allow different players to solve different stages in different ways aren't really a thing in most of the stages I played: there is always an optimal strategy. And that strategy says “if you want to melee, you are wrong”.

The story in Hotline Miami 2 has no mystery, no interesting themes or shades of gray. If Hotline Miami was a subtle critique of violence, Hotline Miami 2 is a cynical celebration of it. Scenes of sexual violence are tasteless, cynically added as shock value and to get publicity for the game. Even the beginning of the game just has a bunch of bored slackers deciding to go kill for fun/sport. Jacket wasn't a good guy, but I still got some enjoyment out of piecing together why he was killing. Was he brainwashed, confused, or just really bloodthirsty?

In Hotline Miami 2 I know why these people are killing. Because violence is fun and cool! Did the same writers even work on both games?

I don't like Hotline Miami 2 nearly as much as the first. I can admit my extreme bias here as the first is one of my favorite games EVER and I replay it from time to time.

But in Hotline Miami 2, I didn't care about the story or the characters. The stages were overly frustrating instead of tough-but-fair. If it all turns around later in the game and the level design gets better and the story improves, that's great! But I played several hours of the game and was so frustrated by the experience that I've shut it off and haven't touched it in months.

I'm glad Hotline Miami exists, and I'm even happier that there won't be a third.