Defense Grid 2

Huge fan of DG1. Had no idea this was even out until last week. Bought it almost as soon as I saw it. You know what? It's a little less complicated than DG1 in some respects, a little more thoughtful in others. I enjoyed the characters, the voice acting, and the graphics are pretty solid. It doesn't offer a lot of the "thinking" that DG1 did, but that doesn't mean it wasn't "enjoyable." If you like dDG1, you'll probably like this. I did beat it relatively quickly; on normal, I cleared all 20 missions in less than 10hrs with a gold medal on each. I look forward to hitting them on harder difficulties in the future, but...
I had fun. I had fun playing it, I wanted to keep coming back to play it, and I enjoyed playing it.
I can't ask for any more than that.

The sequel to the quintessential tower defense game uses the same formula with new scoring and defense augmentation.
I never cared for tower defense games until I played Defense Grid (I tried it after seeing how much fun a tower defense/third-person shooter hybrid was in Dungeon Defenders and Orcs Must Die!). Defense Grid was so great: fun towers, interesting maps, great voice acting, balanced gameplay (not too easy, not too difficult—just the right balance of trying to avoid that one slippery enemy slipping through and ruining your perfect run). I played it years ago, and then when I saw DG2, I wanted to wait a while to miss it and then come back when I wanted a sure-fire addictive game to play.
DG2 delivers, and you'll like it depending on how much you want a sequel to stick to a formula or improve on it. DG2 just looking at it without scrutinizing too much appears to be near-identical to its predecessor: similar graphics (they are slightly improved, but I couldn't see enough to say they're significantly better), similar maps and gameplay, similar towers, and similar enemies. There are a couple new enemies (if I remember correctly, the shield enemies and disabling bomb enemies, for example, are new), but rather than invent new towers they found ways to augment them to give you more options for what the towers could do. As such, it's hard to rate this game objectively since the first was near-perfect and I gave it a full recommendation, and so does this being near-identical make it a near-perfect game, too, or is a game developer required to make it bigger and better just to make it bigger and better so you can keep its high rating?
The Positives
-As with Defense Grid, the game is about as good as tower defense can get. You have a variety of towers, now enhanced with tower augmentations that can give your towers new effects, which anyone good at math knows creates millions of combinations of towers and augmentations along with order of placement and other factors on the map. The game is balanced so you feel like the right placement and upgrade at the right time is the difference between success/gold and failure/no medal.
-I especially like the multiple difficulty levels, various modes, enemy and tower descriptions, story and script access from the menu screen, the voice acting, associated preamble audio, and even co-op options (though I didn't use them, it's a cool feature that I would've loved as a kid). Most of these are enhancements/changes to the previous game (minus the voice acting, which is equally great in both) that greatly enhance my enjoyment of the game.
-I do like how there are many feasible approaches once you get all of the towers. It gives you flexibility instead of finding the one "solution"—Orcs Must Die! and this game do it very well. It feels like I can play the game my way and win vs. finding the "right" way, even though you have to learn and experiment because certain combinations are not going to work against certain enemies (e.g., no lasers and temporals equals failure if there's a speedy, well-armored enemy). My favorite part is that, unlike another game I played where it seemed like you just had to find the right combination of ships (that game used ships, not towers) or you failed, here you can sometimes win with all of one tower type with good placement, augmentations, and timing. The fact that it's not the same strategy of place one of each (though that's safe since it prevents any one enemy type from slipping through nearly unharmed) or whatever is great.
-I like how the hardest mode basically requires augmentations and, therefore, allows you to play it right away but necessitates playing the game until you get some good ones to beat. Most importantly, it tells you this in the description so you don't get mad when you don't have strong enough augmentations yet. Great use of short, effective descriptions.
-They kept everything that was great about the original: nice visuals, fun gameplay, a score to prove you mastered the level, great voice acting, etc. Some sequels change what worked and ruin it, but this didn't.
The Negatives
-The story isn't as good this time. I don't know what it is about it, but the first game had me loving the story and characters, while this one's intro and script for each level was forgettable. It's not too different from the first game—training and then real alien attacks, only across worlds—but the intros are vague (written like anonymous diary entries) and the script is just more "gotta find out what they're doing, get them, and new issues pop up while we're doing that" that doesn't stand out. I love this game and the voice acting, so no idea why I checked out of the writing...but I found myself being unable to retain the plot information for more than a few seconds before forgetting and playing the game more.
-Some people don't like the new scoring—enough that they brought back the old scoring. I also couldn't easily see how holding resources would earn "interest" like in the original game; I think it was based on kill/wave bonuses vs. faster accumulation, but I'm not sure.
-If you wanted something new/different, this is too similar to DG for you. I'm glad they iterated vs. completely deviating, but the lack of new towers (enhancements are cool, though!) was the only disappointment.
-There are hundreds of level variations now, all (except for the old scoring) with the possibility of getting bronze/silver/gold assigned to each. As such, truly 100%ing this game would mean playing the same 20 levels over 1,000 times (not exaggerating; 4 difficulties * 10 modes * 20 levels * 4 scoring types = 3,200). I started doing what I did in DG and completing every mode for various difficulties, but I quickly just jumped to Elite once I had some good augmentations because you'll spend thousands of hours otherwise.
-Because of the way augmentations are earned (random after victories), the difficulty curve is wonky. I started on normal, then realized that I 100%ed DG1 and cranked it up to Elite, which was impossible without augmentations (the game tells you, so it's okay). Then, I got the low-level augmentations and barely beat some of the Elite challenges, but then I got greater levels and they became a near-cakewalk. So, it's hard to judge, but it feels like the augmentations create difficulty variations—for one mode, with the wrong augmentation, I got slaughtered...then with one change I won easily with the same loadout.
Overall, I love the game and the series. The only two things that bothered me were that I couldn't retain the story (same old "aliens may or may not be coming and issues galore while dealing with them") and that, after playing DG for over 100 hours, the core part of the game was just 20 new maps. While I love that they take great care in the map evolution/progression and help you develop your skills and experiment with new tower combinations, it feels like "DG: Map Expansion" unless you stop that instinct and appreciate the augmentations, tower/enemy/story records, and other enhancements. And I'm ambivalent about the scoring change...
But, as I started this review with, it's like comparing any movie classic with its sequel: it's usually not as good because it's more of the same or too different. For a great movie sequel, it has to keep all that's great and build on it. This does that, and so it more resembles a great movie sequel than a great video game sequel (you expect games to have the same basic premise but then hundreds of graphical and gameplay enhancements). I recommend it highly to anyone, so anything mentioned here is more of a comparison to the amazing first game and not an objective, absolute view of good/bad. Great game, great enhancements, but just a tad too similar to the first game to make it stand out as better than the first. It's more of the same, which dampens the novelty, but it's still great and the enhancements are very, very welcome.

When I first started playing this game, I was very unhappy with it. I even considered giving it a Not Recommended review. It's got some significant changes from Defense Grid 1, which I got a gold score on every mode of every level of every DLC (so you could say I'm a fan). I eventually came to appreciate Defense Grid 2, and I think I'm likely to beat every aspect of it as well. That being said, I do think it's a significant step down in most aspects.
The biggest thing is that they got rid of resource interest. That provided a huge risk/reward opportunity, and was a big part of the fun of the original game. It was often impossible to get a gold score on levels if you didn't utilize it. With this sequel, it's basically impossible to get anything below Gold if you don't lose a core, which makes it a lot less fun. You just spend resources when you want, without any consideration to how interest will affect things.
The color scheme of DG2 is also just terrible. Almost everything is a shade of white or blue, including the cores and the paths. It's damn near impossible to see where lose cores are, and even enemies can be difficult to see if you don't have the best eyesight (like me). While that adds a challenge, it's just an accessibility one, not a fun one.
Finally, I found the story much less engaging in this game compared to the first one. Instead of one speaking characters (or up to three, including the DLC), you get like seven people talking to you early on in the game, all while you're trying to concentrate on the fast paced enemies (because everything is much faster in this game for some reason). What they say often isn't all that interesting either. It's very quippy, as opposed to the more serious tone of the first game. There's no opportunity to get attached to any of them, because they'll all just say a line or two each mission. After my initial playthrough, I ended up just muting all the voices because the terrible jokes got so annoying.
The only DLC is community made maps that you can BUY (that's right, stuff made for free is for sale), and a 30 minute audiobook explaining the plot....which is just insane.
It's still a good game, but even as I'm writing the review, I can't help but get mad, because it's such a step down from Defense Grid 1. It's always frustrating seeing a company step away from something that worked for a worse alternative. Honestly, the lack of resource interest alone is what really set the first game apart for me, as none of the previous DG games I'd played before had it.

Pretty fun. It's a challenge alright. Gotta have a good build pattern to beat each type of wave otherwise some will slip through.

On the surface this may seem a simplistic game...and it is for all intents and purposes. easy to pick up and play. challenging and still relaxxed yet full of action!

hours and hours may be spent trying to get a map beat juuuust right so that you receive the maximum badge. fantastic tower defense game.

dont miss out on the first Defense Grid either! less options in upgrades but in many ways a even better experience capable of eating hundreds of hours blissfuly :D

Been playing this game for over a decade, my best return game too. EXCELLENT GAME

One of the best games in its genre, underrated in my opinion. You can spend tens of hours of fun gameplay with this game. I absolutely love this game.