The Surge

Sequel to the game that was Dark Souls with robots. Instead of playing as a man in a wheelchair who painfully gets an exoskeleton, you play as a custom character who ends up in a plane crash and gets their exoskeleton after beating up some prisoners. You then end up going on a quest to find a missing girl within a city that's been filled with violent scavengers, cultist, military soldiers, and nano-machines.
The game has to it a new protagonist who you can customize on top of picking the outfit they wear. There's also new enemies, new armors, and new weapons on top of an improved combat system. Executions are still good and brutal and you get a variety of side quest that can be very rewarding. weapons gained from boss fights are still the same in that you have both the regular version and the improved version, the latter of which can be gained if you kill the boss in certain conditions. Doing the latter will not only net you a better version of the bosses weapon, but certain merchants in the game can sell you the regular version of the boss weapon for free. And on top of that, you also get a new status effect that ties in with one of the new enemy types you go up against.
The cons that come with the game is the parrying system. While I didn't parry much in games like Dark Souls, I could get the hang of it with some enemies. In this game however, parrying requires you to match up the direction your enemy attacks and some enemies can attack much more quickly than I could react. Some bosses can be cheap that instead of being able to dodge their attacks, I would have to tank their swings while spamming my healing booster, all at a cost of not getting better weapons from certain bosses. In one last comparison to the Souls series, the devs didn't bother to take notes from the Souls sequels in letting New Game+ be at the players whim. If you beat the final boss, you can't go back and finish any side quest or do the DLC. Once you beat the final boss and let the credits roll, you have to do new game+. While I don't really mind doing New Game+ since it did mix up some enemy placements, the devs do not let you carry over any crafting materials you have. Instead you gotta farm up for that again. Starting NG+ also forces you to go through the beginning of the prison again which means you don't get to dodge but your enemies all get a damage boost. One last con is that some parts of the game can be buggy such as one of the encounters in the game you get is against some elite soldiers who will try to attack you at key areas. If you die to them, they disappear, if you face the final soldier in a final encounter but went through a certain entrance, he won't appear despite his dialogue appearing.
Overall, it's a fun sequel to the first Surge game.

This game needs to stop being compared to others. It has an interesting story, quality and unique combat system, and is fun to play. There have been many attempts from other game developers to capture the "souls like" feel but this game is one of the few who have, in my opinion, successfully done so. The game itself is fun to play and feels like an actual video game. Anyone who buys this game hoping "it's as good as Dark Souls" will only do a disservice to themselves as all they'll be doing is critiquing the differences. You know what they say: comparison is the killer of joy.
Besides that, like I said, the game is fun to play. I've been playing video games for more than 2 decades. It's hard for me to find a game I honestly want to come back and play for a second or third time. The Surge 2 actually captures my interest. Most combat encounters are fun. Boss fights are all unique from each other. The armor is cool and I like the aesthetic of both the world and gear.
Couple warnings though:
There is only bug that bothers me: when you turn on vsync, cloth physics are a little weird sometimes. They bounce all over the place. It's just something you gotta deal with. There are plenty of armors with no cloth physics, but some packs of enemies have them and it's just unavoidable. If you turn on vsync, it removes the problem, but the screen tearing from turning off vsync is a much much worse trade.
Second warning:
You will probably experience a lot of crashes if your RAM isn't set to XMP mode in your BIOS. If you're an avid PC gamer, you should always have XMP mode on anyway.
Other than that, I enjoy and recommend this game.

I'm not a big fan of the aesthetics, but the creators obviously understood what made DS1 and Bloodborne work so well, and they did a good job implementing those things here in an original setting with new and interesting mechanics. Still can't get out from under the shadow of Fromsoft, but hey, who in this genre can?
If they keep up this pace of improvement (From Lords of the Fallen to here) then their next game could be a true contender. And in the meantime, this is worth playing.

Someone got Dead Space in my Dark Souls!

The Surge 2 is a game that takes all of the things that made the first game great, then makes them better...but then decides that you still deserve more anyway! For me, this was the perfect example of a successfully made sequel to a game that I wasn't fully sold on at all, but then the developers turn around and deliver a whopper of a redeeming follow up that I was so happy to play. Yes, it had its frustrating moments, especially in the beginning, but what souls-like doesn't? It ultimately boils down to a handful of things; practise, patience, perseverance.
The Surge 2 introduces a few new additions and quality of life changes from its predecessor including a parrying system, a handful of new weapons, a third style of armour (light, medium and heavy to put it in most basic terms. The first game only did light or heavy) and a very interesting healing system that doesn't limit you to just a handful of measly heals before you have to run to a healing station to restock. Instead you operate on battery charges that primarily generate through attacks you land, when you charge a battery you can then use it to activate injectables of all kinds, from the standard healing module to a whole array of other offensive and defensive mods you can install on your rig as you level up. Batteries lose charge over time but you can use certain passive augments to store batteries indefinitely until used...essentially you can stay out in the field for long periods of time based mostly on how efficient you are in combat and if you remember to always keep your healing mods pre-charged. You also use a charge when you want to severe a limb to gain crafting resources or schematics of the armour they are wearing.
And I could go on and on about it, honestly its great trust me. The ability to make so many different types of builds is mind blowing.
The combat though, is goddamn great, I had such a fun time playing this game, learning patterns and fighting all kinds of enemies. As someone who puts Sekiro on the top pedestal for greatest souls-like I've played so far, The Surge 2 follows closely behind. That naturally means I also just love and appreciate the parrying system as parrying was the primary means of countering enemies in Sekiro for maximum combat effectiveness...you can still dodge but it just doesn't quite hit the dopamine the same way parrying does and I can say exactly the same for this game, just wonderful.
The games world itself isn't actually that big but they use its space really well to stretch it out to that nice 30-40 hour playtime mark, even on a fairly slow first run and without feeling like you're running in circles, something that the first game made me feel like I was doing ALL THE DAMN TIIIMMMME. Plenty of quests to do, plenty of hidden items to find, enough space to explore and find shortcuts and they aren't dull or uninspiring maps either, or at least I didn't think so.
All in all, really glad I got to play this and SO much better than I thought it would be, just so much fun and the boss fights aren't disappointing either!
100% recommend!!

Beat it twice. Game itself + "NG+". First time I forgot about Kraken DLC. At the next walkthrough I fixed it.
Didn't get plat, but was close to it. Surge2 has a lot of achievements which you can miss.
Straight continue of the first part. Now we play for an unnamed generated character, who, of course, has to decide the destiny of the all humanity.
Surge 2 is the same game as its predecessor. But for me, it was easier and not so interesting.
Anyway this is still a good AA souls-genre representative.
I had a few crashes for the first five hours, but then it disappeared somehow. And the next 50 hours it was ok.
P.s. All my short reviews you can find here

I can't get in to other "souls" like games but man...I can't stop playing this one. Definitely a much different aesthetic than more known stuff like Souls/Borne and Nioh. The game is wildly polished and has a LOT of little detail that is easy to miss if you are rushing. The gameplay "loop" is extremely satisfying and the NewGame+ is AMAZING.