Perhaps the worst game I have ever played. The writing is definetly the worst I have seen in a serious piece of media. The dialog is so corny and terrible that I literally had to mute it to continue playing. The storyline doesn't track whatsoever. This game is supposed to take place 7 months after society collapses, but the environment looks like its be 10+ years, and the factions as well. There are way too many factions and none of them serve any significant purpose or enrich the storyline in any significant way. You're telling me that there are people strapping bombs to their chest 220 days after society collapses? Get a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ grip. The game punishes you for giving a ♥♥♥♥ too. Once you finish the mainland storylines, this random ass LMB 2.0 pops up and destroys all progress.
Also, if you are trying to make a compelling story, don't have too many female leaders. Division 1 did it perfectly -- Rikers crew and SHD agent Lu were both strong female leads and made sense. Having someone like that one chick who is a dysfunctional alcoholic be leading a settlement is laughable (she is by far the worst character in the game, I had to skip through all of the cutscenes because they were so corny). All of the sudden you're having women in leads everywhere, which honestly doesn't make any sense. I know they want an "inclusive apocalyptic feel," and women are a large % of customers, but making the game literally more sunshine and rainbows than the first was just shooting themselves in the foot.
The Division 1 is atmospherically a top 5 game I have ever played. It was gritty, raw, and felt like you were really out there reclaiming New York as some CIA-esque operative. The Division 2 feels like an amusement ride. It is over the top, saturated, and captures barely any of the magic that its predecessor so effortlessly captured. They should have leaned a lot heavier into the rainstormy gloomy elements that they rarely script into missions.
On a more positive note, the gunplay and looting are great. I think the modding and technical stuff is a little on the complex side, but I won't speak on that because I don't really mess with that.
I personally think Div 1 UI was better, but I see a lot of people disagreeing. I think the silhouettes were so much cleaner, and because I immediately jumped from D1 to D2, it is a great metaphor for the entire game: Div1 was sleek, dull, and focused. Div2 is bloated, over-the-top, and so much is going on you want to just close the menu.
