The plot of restoring the human souls is the driving factor of the game but is so poorly defined that even the main character cracks wise at his ignorant ambition. Death is constantly reminded of his choice to slaughter his kin, the Nephilim, for the sake of balance but the soul rending emotional torment comes across as less than a twinge of regret. When Death is castigated by Corruption for his betrayal of family he shrugs it off quickly. Even when faced with the final choice of saving the Nephilim or humans, he doesn’t pause. This constant hammering on Death’s moral dilemma is so flat that if it weren't in the game there would be no difference. Death doesn’t grow or even wrestle with the idea that he may be making the wrong decision. It is simply there to give history to a character that doesn’t need it.
Equally boring would be the repetitive fetch quests Death is charged with to progress the flimsy story. Upon entering a new realm, the same formula is encountered. First meet with a merchant who explains what the realm is, where you need to go, and that you can collect crap to sell. Then after riding way too far though wastefully large locations, the real quest giver is found and then three keys or stones or souls or coconuts need to be liberated from one to five dungeons. Then there is a boss battle or two and off to the next realm. This process is repeated to the end. There is plenty of side quests to fetch more junk from dungeons but with the degree of collect-o-thon cranked to 11 I had enough without them. What was even sadder was the obvious amount of time spent creating the jaw droppingly huge worlds with nothing in them. Hollow comes to mind when thinking of the Darksiders 2 world. This was made more apparent by the easily forgettable dungeons devoid of narrative.
Loot drops are a major factor in Darksiders 2. Enemies drop items adhering to the MMO color scheme of rarity, as do chests and merchants. Death can be equipped with gear boosting all sorts of standard stats. The obvious builds being raw melee damage, magic, and defense. These can be mixed and matched for a balanced experience or min/maxed to make fights a cinch later on. Upon leveling up, new magic skills can be allocated to Death. These skills fall on one of two sides of a tree. I chose to go the route of pure melee damage. The other side of the tree is pet summoning. With the diversity of gear, I’m sure playing a defensive pet fighter would be viable but I prefer to jump straight into the thick of combat deal the damage personally. By the end of the game, I was doing so much damage so quickly and regaining so much health on each hit, that last boss was a cake walk.
If you have limited time and a budget, skip this and just play the first Darksiders. The good combat, puzzles, and scope is lost on a story that fails to engage and an empty world full of tedious tasks. Darksiders 2 is a poor sequel with good intention and bad design. I can’t recommend playing this game.