Payday 2

The best way to play Payday 2 is with three other friends; in my experience the teammate AI isn't savvy enough to keep up on the job. The AI-controlled characters can handle a gun, but oftentimes wander out of a building into compromising situations.

A rough single-player mode and unfriendly online matches mar an otherwise fun first-person shooter.

Payday 2's unique brand of co-op mayhem cannot be missed, but for this price and when learning how to pull off a perfect heist is just so much fun. [Issue#102, p.81]

Payday 2 is a great game when you have the right participants. This is a co-op game, and that cannot be stressed enough. If you intend to go in solo, there is little here to warrant a purchase. However, if you have a regular crew of three friends willing to take on heists with you, there is little else like this experience. Not to mention it is extremely fun when played right.

Payday 2 is the best multiplayer game you'll play this year, but as a result should be avoided if you love to play single-player.

It's just too easy to forgive Payday 2 for looking shonky though. This game isn't about appearances; it's about the tension and excitement and thrill found in the heat of a moment. It's about hard work and co-operation and a well-placed bullet coming together to pull off the perfect crime. If you've got a tight team of four bank-busting buddies ready and raring to go, and you can overlook some below-average scenery, you're in for a hell of a time. Mask up.

Parts of its presentation are lacking, and the state of its single-player is criminal, but overall, it's a deep, addictive co-op shooter that tickled my inner burglar.

A hugely enjoyable game, and it’s obvious that the developers have thought long and hard about every single aspect of the gameplay, keeping everything that worked from the previous game and doing away with, or improving, all of the other aspects.

It's still a long way from being the slick, sophisticated crime thriller it wants to be but, with a little forgiveness from the player, this rough diamond manages to shine.

PAYDAY 2 is a game with a lot of potential and good ideas, but the final version of the game has a few defects. Sometimes the AI will be doing things which are quite strange. Luckily, PAYDAY 2 is saved by its mods, unlocks and co-op mode.

Overkill has plans to update the game, and squash the bugs. A year's worth of DLC is scheduled post-release. But right now, it's like I'm standing outside a vault. There's something brilliant inside, and I'm willing to wait.

As a single player game it's just a mediocre shooter, but bring on some friends and you'll have hours upon hours of mindless fun.

As long as you can find some felons to fight alongside, Payday 2 is an addictive and challenging criminal pursuit.

There may be no such thing as the perfect heist in PayDay 2, but they’re rarely forgettable — proof that while this game isn’t quite the transcendent co-op experience on the level of, say, Left 4 Dead — it still offers up a nice change of pace in first-person shooters on Xbox.

PayDay 2 sports an interesting concept but it isn't flawless: bad graphics and a very inappropriate AI keep it from showing its true potential. You should consider it only if you've got three friends to play with.

If you can bear some of its faults, you don't mind an awful lot of shooting and can get three friends together, then Payday 2 is a blast.