I just finished Mafia II, and I went back and watched Brad and Ryan's quicklook of it where Brad just seemed to rattle off his list of grievances. Looking back, they were kind of stupid points. A major complaint was a lack of things to do. Aside from the infamous Playboy collectibles (50 of em), 149 wanted posters and selling cars to Bruski, yeah I guess that's true. But what about LA Noire, which Brad creamed all over himself for? Aside from discovering landmarks (which just involves driving around) and the 40 street crimes (which all boil down to the same handful of scenarios), there wasn't much to do on the side there either. Like Mafia II it was extremely story-centric, as on-rails as this game is. Another "complaint" was that going around the city and mindlessly killing didn't feel right given Vito's character, but couldn't that also be said for GTA4? Niko didn't seem the type to cause wanton destruction and commit genocide, yet that wasn't raised against the game as a negative. Same for Red Dead Redemption. In GTA3 mindless killing worked because the main character, Claude, had zero depth to him and was entirely silent. With the evolution of this genre, nearly any wanton destruction won't really fit with the story as playable characters are given depth, opinions, emotion, etc.
 
Mafia II is very story-centric, and I felt the story was a good one. Not very original, but, to return to comparisons with other well-reviewed games in the genre, neither was LA Noire or GTA4. All of these games take blatantly from other media sources such as film. Another knock against it was "yeah for missions you sort of just follow the red line." What about the other games I've already mentioned? If you wanna strip down the gameplay to its foundation the same could be said for any of the other games that exist in the realm of Mafia II.
 
I get that reviews are opinions and everyone's entitled to one, but I really just don't understand the dislike or just sheer apathy towards this title. I felt it played well, told a good (though not original) story, and most importantly it was fun. What gives?

That deal was undercooked.

@Duke_of_IRL said:

Another "complaint" was that going around the city and mindlessly killing didn't feel right given Vito's character, but couldn't that also be said for GTA4? Niko didn't seem the type to cause wanton destruction and commit genocide, yet that wasn't raised against the game as a negative. Same for Red Dead Redemption.

They have pointed out this problem with both GTA4 and Red Dead numerous times in the past, its just the rest of the game was good enough to justify it not being that big of a deal. I guess that isn't the case with Mafia 2.

No it got it's just deal

I enjoyed Mafia 2, I thought it had a really good story.  But nothing that really compares with GTA IV or RDR, which just have a whole lot of content that really keeps them going once you're finished with the story.  Mafia 2 didn't really have anything except for the main story.  No side missions and exploring wasn't any fun (although the city was beautiful and the jump from the 40's to the 50's was very dramatic).  
 
 I do think Vito was a much more believable character than Niko, they both had flimsy reasons for doing what they were doing, but Vito was a bit more of a prick, in that he didn't want to do backbreaking labour and was just looking for an easy way out, where as Niko spends the whole time whining about how he's doing the wrong thing.. then proceeds to murder hundreds of people seconds later.  (John Marston at least had a reason for returning to his life of crime, and being set in that time period made it more believable anyway). 
 
It's a shame though, I think a lot of people would have enjoyed Mafia II a lot more if it weren't for the harsh reviews.  It's definitely worth playing for anyone who likes these type of games.

I loved Mafia 2 and played thorugh it twice. I never finished GTA IV and have no intention to.
 
Just throwin that out there.

I quite liked Mafia 2, especially when it was very story driven. Like when you came back from the war, or when you were sent off to jail and so on. The open world aspect was meh at best, that's for sure. But so was the first Mafia, so I didn't go into the game expecting anything grand when it came to that. Though the last hour of the game felt a bit rushed and there was little that impressed me, aside from the rather emotional mission where you send regards on behalf of Don Salieri.

With that said, I enjoyed the first Mafia a lot more. The story of Tommy Angelo was more interesting than the one of Vito.

Some people still think open world has to mean sandbox. Those people are wrong, but there it is.

Agree 100%

Noir gets a lot of press because omg faces so real but at the end of the day its really not much of a game- id even go so far as to suggest the police quest games had more actual gameplay. At any rate Mafia II + DLC = Awesome Win Would Mafia Again

Just to clarify, I'm not saying this game is better or worse than GTA4, RDR or LA Noire by bringing them up, merely that they all share similar traits for which Mafia II got knocked but those games did not (at least from what I've seen).
 
With Mafia II I viewed the open world as more of a way to deeply immerse the player in the world, once again similarly to LA Noire. There's definitely two distinct open-world-game camps: games where the story is the focus, and games where the environment itself is the focus, and this is definitely the former. A good example of the latter would be Just Cause 2 or Red Faction Guerilla. I'd say GTA4 and RDR sit towards the story side, but lean more over to the environment side as well. Not exactly directly in the middle as the stories are definitely the main attractions, but their worlds were meant to be explored fully with a bunch of optional stuff to do within.
 
I dunno, I still just don't really understand the attitude toward Mafia II. If you dig open world games which are story focused this is definitely a good entry into that genre.

The main (only?) difference twixt LAN and M2 (and these are both specifically mentioned in either the review or the quicklook or both for LAN) is that in LAN you can 1) fast travel if you don't want to drive everywhere and 2) when a story mission ends you do not have to drive BACK to a pickup point to get the next mission to start, the timeline moves forward and BOOM there you are. 
 
You may not think that this is a big thing, but for - apparently - most people it was. Hell, I drove 1000 miles in the M2 (and I didn't use the rubberband/tape/drive in circles on the docks cheat either - just listened to all the content on all the radio stations, twice, each), so I'm not one to talk.
 
Also the fact that LAN boasts, for the most part, a completely different game mechanic and so the expectations of a sandbox enviornment are lessened. Though there are a vocal minority of reviewers and players who have complained that the city has that same "empty" feeling that M2 did.

Your argument might have some merit if Mafia II let you skip the driving between missions like LA Noire, but it doesn't. The driving is both required, and boring. You already decided that's a "stupid" distinction to make, though, so let's not belabor this point anymore.

Thats true With LA Noire I didnt feel there was open world I just used fast travel and did the cases. If Mafia was like that I would enjoy it more.

@Brad said:

belabor

First time I have ever seen this word. I dunno why though because what an awesome word it is.

@Brad said:

belabor

First time I have ever seen this word. I dunno why though because what an awesome word it is.

If your main point is that L.A. Noire got a 5/5 despite having the same flaws in the open world aspect, it's worth noting that L.A. Noire was a new experience whereas Mafia II was just a straight GTA clone.  That said, I think Mafia II was a fine game and L.A. Noire is quite overrated.

Your argument might have some merit if Mafia II let you skip the driving between missions like LA Noire, but it doesn't. The driving is both required, and boring. You already decided that's a "stupid" distinction to make, though, so let's not belabor this point anymore.

You liked it, some other people did too and some people didn't.  Who cares?  Ain't gonna stop this crazy world a-spinning. 

If your main point is that L.A. Noire got a 5/5 despite having the same flaws in the open world aspect, it's worth noting that L.A. Noire was a new experience whereas Mafia II was just a straight GTA clone.  That said, I think Mafia II was a fine game and L.A. Noire is quite overrated.

I could care less about scores really, I just felt it was odd M2 was disliked so much for being a good product.

Well people can have their filthy LA Noir.

@Duke_of_IRL said:

I could care less about scores really, I just felt it was odd M2 was disliked so much for being a good product.

I totally agree.  I had played Mafia II without reading any reviews and whatnot and thought it was quite good.  Then I heard Jeff take a jab at it during a Bombcast that made me go "Wait, people didn't like Mafia II?  What the hell?"

I actually finished mafia 2, but didn't finish GTA. It's a solid game, with a decent atmosphere and I quite like Vito. He's a cool guy. The shooting felt adequately different aswell and pretty cool.

For me the open world in mafia 2 served as a way to create an atmosphere around the events happening in the game. 

I absolutely adored Mafia 2, and in many ways, I found it to be superior to GTA 4. The storytelling and atmosphere there is unmatched by any other open world game that I know of (the recent LA Noire not included).
I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it, simply because I've been hearing all the negative things people were saying. I couldn't care less about side stuff, those things always bore me to death anyway, and I never bother doing them. I'd rather have a shorter, concentrated and fun experience than have a longer, diluted one filled with mundane tasks.
 
And that ending... Seriously bummed me out.

It also looked fantastic on PC and ran great. One of the prettiest open world games I've laid eyes on. 
 
I don't know, I'm just hoping there are still plans for another Mafia. Be a shame if this didn't do well enough for us to get another one.

For me the open world in mafia 2 served as a way to create an atmosphere around the events happening in the game. 

Mafia 2 to me a few of my close friends who also played the game agree it has one of the best stories this generation of games. 
 
The characters are extremely likable and believable, and the plot twists are unexpected and leave you wanting to play more. I finished the game in two sittings on hard difficulty. 12 hours. 
 
Thinking about it makes me want to see a Mafia 3 and find out what happend to the characters I liked so much, they all seemed human, all mistakes had huge consequences (at one point you go to prison for a few years, or your best friend presumably gets killed in the cliffhanger ending.) Great game, honestly fucked up how low it got rated, especially gametrailers giving kane and lynch 2 a better score. FUCK THEM. 
 
Hope it sold well to say the least, it was worth every penny I paid at full price and the 15 dollars in the recent sales people spent was robbery for the amount of talent put in to that game.

I just felt mafia was really thin when it came to gameplay and some of its characters, and that eventually got to me. I stopped playing the game about 3 hours from finish. I got the exact same feeling near the end of LA Noire when you switched characters. Needless to say I was dissapointed with both games, but more so with mafia. I was atleast able to finish LA Noire.

Mafia 2 was quite good but the police needed more lines that's for sure.I enjoyed the missions for the most part just wish the game was longer and there was fast travel.