Portal 2 Impressions

First, let's just get the cliche joke out of the way.  My feelings for Portal 2 are this.

This was a triumph.

There, now we can move on.

Many are heralding Portal 2 as the second coming of the lord.  Many others are bashing it, saying it's 5 hours long and has nothing new.  The actual answer lies somewhere in the middle.

The singleplayer campaign for Portal 2 is much like Portal 1's.  It features insane personalities, teaching through actions, and some incredible mind-bending puzzles.  Valve seems to have realized that Portal's humor was its greatest feature, so it expanded on it here.  Stephen Merchant, J K Simmons, and the original GlaDos do some of the best voice-acting performances I've ever seen.  You'll laugh.  Even if you hate the series, you'll laugh.

Surprisingly, the plot and characters in Portal 2 are some of its strongest points.  The game humanizes all of your computer companions and you end up caring for them.  Well done, Valve.

Wheatley, one of the best characters introduced to gaming in a long, long time.

The co-op portion of Portal 2 drops much of the characters and plot.  But what it loses in those, it gains in some of the more incredible, complex puzzles I've seen in any game.  Bewb (my XBL buddy) and I finished it last night and there were many points where we'd have to look around a room and gauge our wealth of options (or Bewb would figure out how he was going to kill me next).
 
The comedy is still present in the co-op campaign, but a bit more active.  For example, GlaDos will give you messages that they don't tell the other person.  She'll say things like "Orange and I were just talking about how much better he is at this than you".  You'll quote lines to each other constantly to make sure that you don't miss anything.  It's great.

The excellent story telling from the 1-player campaign is largely absent in the co-op version.  There's a small one there, but it's generally ignored until the last 5 minutes.  With how much the plot drove the singleplayer game for me, I felt like something was off in the 2-player campaign.

Overall, people are correct when they say that there isn't much new to the gameplay of Portal 2.  But what they're missing is the complete package that Valve has provided.  Portal 1's draw was entirely based around its puzzles and ending song.  Portal 2 added in plot, humor, and life to the original appeal to make a great game.

What I loved

• Every comedy moment around every turn.  There are a lot of them.
• The comedy again.  That's how much I love the humor in this game.
• A story that made me play through the game, not got in the way.
• Some of the best voice acting I've ever heard.

What I liked

• Not messing with a proven gameplay formula, but still adding a few elements in to keep it fresh.
• The ending song.  It wasn't as good as the previous, but that's a hard song to live up to.

What I didn't enjoy

• Virtually zero replayability.  I hope that there's some DLC, because I played for about 15 hours and I may not ever need to play again.
• Load screens.  Normally it doesn't bother me, but there were as constant as the comedy was.
• The lack of plot in the co-op version.  If you're going to make it so great in the singleplayer, add it to the multiplayer as well. 

If you get it, enjoy.  If not, you'll miss out, but at least you won't miss out on hours and hours of a great game.