Crysis 2

Pros:

• The combat makes this game for me. Coming up to an area full of enemies fills me with joy at deciding how to take them all out effectively, instead of most shooters that have me spending more time staring at a compass so I know where the game specifically wants me to go through their lazy level design to stand at the exact right spot and use the exact right weapon as brainless meatheads charge towards me. It's the same kind of experimenting I loved in the first game. Favourite way of killing a human: Powerkicking a car into him. Favourite way of killing an alien: Cloak, stick C4 on its back, decloaking, and detonating.
• The suit powers feel far more intuitive to use and combine on the fly than the original, and the suit upgrading system is awesome. All Crysis 3 needs is a hacking skill and a more diverse suit upgrade tree and this game will be Deus Ex as I always imagined it to be.
• While I do think it lacks the amount of open ended feeling of the previous games, I admit after spending an hour throwing chickens into the ocean, I never used much of it anyways, and sometimes I felt like I was spending way too much time running through empty jungle. In the end, the game gets a good balance of open-ended areas and a better feeling of direction between setpieces.
• The implementation of the cover system is beyond a doubt the most elegant use of a cover system in any game I've ever played. Not a single time did I stick to something I didn't want to. I hope other games follow this template.
• Overall, I still feel like it's got great pacing. As soon as I'm about to have my fill it switches things up again.
• While I was actually someone who didn't hate the change of pace in the original Crysis nearly as much of others, undeniably the execution of the last 3rd of the game is far superior to previous Crytek games. The last mission alone is probably the most exciting and memorable of any FPS game I've played since Half-Life 2.
• While the story may not be amazing and has a lot of clichéd ideas (Aliens want our resources and a huge mega-corporation is exploiting that using a grand conspiracy, etc.), I thought the storytelling was actually pretty interesting. Especially how most of the game had everyone thinking you were someone else, and the idea of the suit becoming a part of you. Dialogue in this game is actually pretty snappy compared to it's peers.
• I disagree with Gerstmann's review in that I found the soundtrack way more memorable and fitting than most other shooters.
  

Cons:

• The length between checkpoints with no manual save is my biggest gripe by far. If I have to play the same 5 minute section over again before getting to the part I'm having trouble with, it suddenly deadens my enthusiasm for liberal experimentation with my tactics, which should be what is encouraged.
• While I mostly enjoyed the pacing, there's a section in the middle that goes a little too corridor-like and lasts a bit too long for my liking.
• I kinda miss the lack of destructibility. The environment is still more destructible than most other games, but I also feel a little let down when I start beating up a trailer or a fence and nothing happens.
• The "tactical visor" is a bit too much. I get into a new area and it's like "Here's a ledge you can jump on, and over here is where you can sneak past! LOOK!" I know that probably their player testing and responses from the first Crysis suggested a lot of people just won't notice those options without hand-holding, but I like exploring and discovering on my own. I know I technically don't need to turn it on in the first place but sometimes I feel like I need to do so. Ironically, I also feel like it was a little frustratingly too vague in a couple spots over what I was supposed to do next.
• The ability to modify and adjust the attachments of your weapon continues to be a brilliant idea, I just don't like how the options were locked until I found weapons that already had them. It resulted in me not being able to use a silencer or a scope on my favourite gun for over half the game.

All in all, I adored it. Hope the sales are good because games of this nature are few and far between compared to the super-scripted, super-linear kind, and I'm not quite sure how well it was marketed. If Homefront can surpass a million, this game sure as hell better.