It's been a long time, five years in fact, since the Starbreeze Studios and 2K Games' The Darkness hit the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. It was a quirky little title that had its fair share of issues but was generally well praised by the press and community.

Delivering another action game to the market is a safe bet for most developers and publishers. After all, the genre has been tested and tried so many times and the public still revels in it. However, the real challenge is not making a mere on-the-rails type of shooter with a clich'd story.

Solid gamepaly ideas in this one; cool art; cool execution moves; interesting premise

Single-player's too short; the multiplayer is not compelling enough to make you stay for long; we do miss the open-ended approach from the original game

The original Darkness was a violent, comic book-inspired Mafia tale with a love story at its core, which saw players step into the shoes of Jackie Estacado, a mobster betrayed by his boss and then saw his childhood sweetheart murdered in front of him.

Darkness powers are great fun; Touching plot and believable characters; Eye-popping graphic novel art style

Boss design could be stronger; Guns are satisfying; but the selection is limited; Too gory for the faint hearted

The Darkness II's main campaign is a well-written tale that is worth experiencing, even though the fun factor decreases as the game wears on. Unfortunately, the Vendettas mode is boring and makes up half of the included content. Is it worth paying full price for a game that's 50% fun?

great story , good gameplay as a shooter game and then the RPG type part where yo have to choose options to respond .

The Darkness II begins with Jackie Estacado, 23-year-old mob boss and current possessor of demonic force The Darkness, saying he will never awaken his dormant supernatural abilities ever again, two minutes before you reawaken his supernatural abilities with a single tap of a button.

Has good game play and is very fun but even on hardest difficulty it is still a very easy and short game.

For those who aren't in the know, there were lots more comics publishers than just the big two, and a few, like Image comics, made several interesting and gritty titles, of which "The Darkness" was just one.

Wrapping up The Darkness 2 review, despite some disagreement over certain factors, The Darkness 2 game is a treat for FPS aficionados, placing the power of gory combat into their hands.

Windows XP/Vista/Win 7; 2 GHz Core2Duo / Athlon 64 X2 4200+ CPU; 256 MB GeForce 8600/Radeon HD 2600 graphics card; 1.5 GB RAM; 10 GB hard-drive space

Lacks innovation; Poor AI; Long load times; lacklustre animation; Very short campaign

THE DARKNESS 2 is a first-person action game from developers Digital Extremes which is published by 2K Games. The game runs on the 'Evolution Engine', and is rated '18' by the BBFC. What is The Darkness 2?

Good graphics and gameplay; great voice acting; a very compelling storyline

The campaign is short and the multiplayer is rubbish