The Surge 2

While i don't really like comparing games, i gonna compare it to "The Surge" a little bit. Because it is the same game series and it's also very similar to the first one. They just took everything good from the first game and made it better.
Pros:
1. Soulsborne-like gameplay and combat. Really not much changed there.
2. Futuristic, robotic, sci-fi setting.
3. Great level design and gameworld. Everything is connected again. No corner in the world seems random, there is always something you can discover. Tech scrap, implants, a new shortcut.
4. Even bigger variety of armor and weapons. The old stuff and a lot of new sets and weapons.
5. Not as many implants to build around, but nearly all of them are pretty useful for the right build.
6. Blocking and parrying finally is useful and actualy one way to play the game. I was still using it just on occasion, dodged myself thought the game most of the time and didn't had any problems.
7. Drone combat is much more useful.
8. So a lot of viewable builds you can go for. Drone combat, parry, ultra-aggresiv, hit-hit-dodge, chicken. Really whatever you prefer.
9. Boss fights are even better and more intense. Also a lot of mini-bosses this time around. Enemy placement is great.
10. Maybe because i played the first game so often, but i think it is a bit easier.
11. Story is better and feels more "whole". NPCs are great and well implied into the plot. Some dialogs and references are just fantastic and just because of that totally worth to play. Voice acting is fantastic.
12. Very short, but an absolutly enjoyable DLC (The Kraken).
13. Good replay value at least for a second time, because of New Game +. Around 30-40 hours of playtime, with "The Kraken Dlc".
14. I encountered no bugs, or crashes. Just a few graphical glitches here and there.
Neutral:
1. Atmosphere isn't as immersive and intense as the first one and you play more in the outside world. Which isn't bad, but i enjoyed my time while crawling through dark corridors all the time, inside the creo complex a bit more.
2. Really dark again in some places, even with your lights out.
3. Graphical optimization could be better.
Cons:
1. While the grind level isn't as high as in the first one, you still need to spend some time farming parts. I hope the change the upgrade system for a third installment.
Conclusion:
If you like the genre and/or enjoyed the first game, you can't do much wrong and give this game a try. I really can't unterstand that many bad reviews. Don't compare it to Dark Souls, just because it's the same type of game. Enjoy the little gems the Action-RPG genre had offered us in recent years. Like Nioh 1 and 2, The Surge 1 and 2, Code Vein, Remnant: From the Ashes, Nier. You name it. There all good for a few hours of playtime. At least.
I highly recommended "The Surge 2" at full price, or on a sale. It's not a must, but playing "The Surge" first might be a good idea.
Ps.: Here is my review from the first game if you interested in buying it.

Deck13 have risen far from their bland and uninspiring Lords of the Fallen outing and have crafted a good mechanical and industrial soulslike in the first The Surge. With the second one, they've elevated dancing, stamina based combat, meaty and gory dismemberments and a small, compact world full of twisting paths and shortcuts to an artform.
The Surge 2 puts you in the role of an anonymous Jane/Joe Doe, flying into Jericho City on a plane that gets knocked out of the skies by some kind of disaster. After a few flashbacks of a young girl that was seemingly on the plane with you, you wake up in a prison hospital and need to punch, chop, sever and mutilate your way out through some escaped prisoners, security bots and a heated fight with the prison warden.
The story quickly dissolves into typical sci-fi meanderings of AI, mergers of man and machine, some kind of cyberdisease called Defrag, grizzled military jacks, nano machines absorbing everything and turning the world into Grey Goo and all the other tropes you can imagine. Tried and trusted. There are a few interesting characters and some side quests thrown into the mix, but they all seem to be on the comedic side and are not really taken seriously.
The true stars here are Jericho City itself, with it's districts, twisting and looping alleys, passages and shortcuts, the game's flowing, breakdance style, chunky combat and the satisfying character progression of collecting weapons and armour pieces and mix and matching them until you're satisfied with the bonuses. Or fashion, like any true Souls player knows.
Combat is very dancelike, swings and stabs pushing you forward or sideways as you execute them, swankily melding into finishers and limb chopping. But beware of button mashing. One button press does not always mean one swing and overeagerness will quickly drain you of stamina and leave you exposed. And you will die fast, as enemies pack a real punch, and will flatten you with just a few swings.
Dodging doesn't really give you any iframes and you need to pay attention to the direction of enemy swings. Directional parrying is also a great addition to the game, allowing you to quick parry enemies, temporarily stunning them and allowing you to execute huge hits. When you master this, it sometimes feels slightly overpowered. Battery power, usable for healing, finishing moves and several boost injections, is gained by attacking enemies.
There's a large amount of different armours and weapons you can cleave and scrap from various gangs, military and robots wandering Jericho City. Targeting individual body parts and then breaking the armour allows you to do a finishing move when the enemies' health bar drops low enough, divesting them of the targeted part with an assortment of deathblow animations. When you do it for the first time, you get a schematic for the part, each subsequent dismemberment gets you upgrade parts depending on the level of the enemy.
Armours come in three classes, operator, sentinel and goliath (light, medium and heavy) and give half and full set bonuses usually corresponding to the type of armour. In combination with a plethora of weapon types, from one handed metal scrap blades to giant military axes spewing electricity, you can create builds that focus on specific game mechanics. You could be a heavily armoured tank that relies on blocking and parrying to deliver monstrous blows with a giant piece of machinery or a nimble, fleet footed warrior that uses quick stab attacks with a spear and has reduced stamina costs for dodging.
The drone got a hefty upgrade from the first game and is really useful this time, coming with a few different weapons and abilities. You'll acquire it very quickly and there are armours and implants that synchronize very well with it and it can become a viable build.
You can freely combine and experiment with different builds and your basic stats can be reset for a very meager tech scrap cost, the game's currency for upgrading. You can further boost your build mechanics with implants, adding even more stat and ability boosting bonuses. Each armour part and implant uses power that increases with your main level. The better the armour part or implant, the more power it uses. A minor gripe, certain combinations become a bit unbalanced and very powerful and can easily make the game a breeze or a leisurely stroll to the end.
The bosses are kind of hit and miss. Some are very easy even with inferior equipment, while some are annoyingly tough, multi phased, with weirdly directed attacks and iffy animations to judge them properly. Even with that, levelling, properly equipping yourself and learning those janky patterns can turn them into milder irritations.
Medbays are positioned fairly and finding the shortcuts will sometimes surprise you with how well they loop around and make your trips to the boss fights or the place where you got your head smacked in, losing the scrap, short and relatively hassle free. Online play consists of painting graffiti with your drone, leaving messages or a mini game of hiding your banner and the less players find it, the larger your tech scrap reward is when time runs out. It's a bit useless and gimmicky. You can easily farm more scrap than the mini game gives out.
The arhitecture of the City, lots of tight corridors and a few bosses that move fast do cause some camera problems. In the boss fights, you can usually outdistance it until the camera settles down, but tight corridors are another pair of gloves, often causing you to take hits because you're staring at a piece of a brick wall or steel instead of the enemy. And there were some visual bugs and glitches, but nothing major or game breaking.
The Kraken DLC, accessed rather late in the game, continues with the man vs. machine story, puts you on a decommissioned aircraft carrier, VBS Krakow, and pits you against robotic pirates in a strange 90's sitcom neighbourhood built on the carrier. It's a bit short, with some tough enemies and a combat arena when you finish, but is otherwise just more of The Surge 2. And that's a good thing. All other DLC's, even the paid ones, are purely cosmetic, bring nothing to the gameplay and are easily avoided.
The Surge 2 improves on the first game in every way. From the bedlam that is Jericho City to the really crunchy, satisfying combat, Deck13 have fused very solid gameplay parts to some slightly brittle tehnical and story ones, but have made a sturdy, enjoyable compound that stands as a solid and competent soulslike.
Take a peek inside the Cabinet of Curiosities if you like to walk off the beaten path and only sometimes return to the main roads. You might find something worth exploring. And if you do, thank you for the visit.
Follow the Average Achievement Hunter Curator for reviews and useful information on Steam achievements: Most of the achievements are straightforward, there are a couple of side quests you need to pay attention to, a few collectible missables and the game has 2 ending achievemenents. If you miss anything, there's NG+.

Better than the first game in every conceivable way!
If the first game didn't click with you, then this probably won't convince you either. But, if you liked The Surge and just had some specific pet peeves this will absolutely be your thing.
Personally, I fall into the latter category. Being an avid Dark Souls gamer, I did like the first Surge but never finished it. Mostly due to minor things I didn't like adding up over time. I just lost interest in finishing it. Not so with the second instalment.
Things I really love about The Surge 2:
+ The world. They did an absolutely fantastic job of creating Jericho city. Lots of verticality to explore. Backtracking never feels like a chore. As you get more traversal powers, you gladly come back to explore some more.
+ Combat system. This was already good in the first game (save for some nitpicks). Responsiveness is improved and slicing and dicing away at your foes to get upgrades never gets old.
+ Itemisation. The weapon types are interesting and the move sets absolutely fantastic. Power creep might be a slight put off to some die-hard dark souls difficulty fans (but there are items in the game that permanently halve your damage and/or defence. So if you want hardcore mode, go for it ;))
+ Boss battles. Much improved from the first game in every way. The multiple phases battles make it more interesting in my opinion.
+ Graphics. Everything looks and feels absolutely stunning. Runs well enough on my 9 year old PC (i7-3960X @ 3.30 GHz, 16 GB RAM, Win 10, SSDs) with a recent GeForce GTX 1650 upgrade. (all settings on Very High, TAA and Dynamic Resolution disabled via config tweaks). Usually around 50-60 FPS.
+ NPCs. For the most part the people you meet all have character that fits the situation at hand. There is just enough exposition and backstory for you to make sense of your environment and the people in it.
+ Sound design. Weapons sounds feel right, the world sounds really good. Character responses are good. I liked the voice acting overall.
+ Animations. Having worked as an animator myself, I really have to praise Deck 13's animation team. Splendid job.
Things I didn't like about The Surge 2:
- Boss battles. The fights themselves are - for the most part - good, engaging fights. Where I needed the right amount of tries depending on boss difficulty. But for some reason they just aren't as memorable as, say, Dark Souls III's boss fights. This one is highly subjective though.
- The darkness. Might be due to my specific PC, but the world is way too dark quite often. Increasing the gamma settings just makes it look washed out.
- Music. This one is more subjective nitpicking. The music is good overall. Sadly, when I think back I really can't remember a music score of a boss fight where the music really stood out... so that when I think of the boss fight, I immediately associate that score. Excuse the comparison to Dark Souls III again, but when I think about the Dancer of the Boreal Valley score I get goosebumps.
Finally, the story for me is hit-or-miss. There are parts that I really like, which taken by itself kept me interested long enough to see how it would play out. There are other parts where I really couldn't care less.
Final verdict: wholeheartedly recommended for fans of dark souls clones and action combat games.
For others, give it a go when on sale. Only for people who hated the first game: steer clear.

Surge 2 is a great game that exactly like the first.
Honestly there isn't much different from the first, combat is still the same with targeted body parts, battery charges and a drone.
Armour sets still have perks to them and there are new sets with even better perks.
I got 31 hours of play, completing most of the side missions and maxing out my gear.
The game still throws you into NG+ after beating the boss which is annoying as I missed a few side missions that I thought I would come back to.
There were also some nice easter eggs that tied back to the first game which was awesome.
I havent bought the DLC as it didn't really seem to be worth it with what you got but maybe i'll pick it up in a sale.
Overall great game and enjoyed the sequel.

Overall The Surge 2 is a good Souls-like, nothing groundbreaking or genre breaking; just a solid challenging romp. I would definitely recommend this for people who enjoyed the original and even new people looking for a challenging single player experience.

That horrible country song isn't in every medbay in this game? I like it more than Surge 1 already.

The Surge 2 is one of the best "Souls-Like" games ever made. (No spoilers below).
It's a shame that the mediocrity of the first Surge has almost certainly caused many would-be fans to simply ignore it on premise.
The Surge 2 is not a perfect game. The performance on PC leaves much to be desired, the voice acting is not great, the story is mediocre, and there is a persistent aura of a AA developer "near-polish" where things are often slightly more buggy or sub-par than you would otherwise expect them to be (but can you really blame a AA developer for putting out a AA-looking game?).
But in almost everything else, The Surge 2 shines. The combat is ridiculously satisfying, build customization potential is off the charts, and the risk-reward element that is the key to many of the mechanics in any souls-like game is perfected here.
I can't think of any other game like this where, if you see any piece of equipment you like, you have to literally target the specific enemy body part and damage it enough to cut it off in order to collect the schematics and materials for that armor piece. Throw in directional parrying, charge attacks, your drone attacks, and the hundreds of combinations of rig implants, and you've got a combat system that is arguably deeper and more varied than any other souls-like.
The rig power level system allows for amazing potential for customization. Leveling your rig increases its power level, which allows you to equip more implants and stronger armor pieces. This makes tweaking and perfecting your desired build extremely fun, as you weigh the costs and benefits of what items you want to equip. Thankfully the character menu has three loadout slots that you can switch between at any time, so you don't have to be married to a single build.
The battery system in the game, which serves almost as a "mana" bar, is genius. Similar to the enemy armor system, it gives the player more risk-reward decisions to make during combat. Attacking enemies charges your batteries, while using consumables or executing enemies consumes a battery. However, certain implants and armor sets benefit from keeping your batteries charge, while others--that have effects triggered upon filling a battery--benefit from emptying them as quickly as possible.
The death system is great as well. As with any souls-like, your drop your currency/xp (called "Tech Scrap" in this game) upon death, and you must recover it or lose it forever. However, respawning after death begins a timer. When that timer expires, the tech scrap is lost, but you can extend the timer by killing enemies along the way. But wait! Even though there is a timer, you might not want to pick it up right away. Your nearby dropped tech scrap will slowly heal you over time if left untouched, which may be key to you defeating that boss or group of enemies that killed you the first time.
This game is just so fun to play, and I wish it got the attention it deserved.