As a huge fan of the zombie genre, and a huge fan of basically every game every produced by Valve, L4D2 is one of my favorite games of all time. I still play it on a regular basis. The online cooperative play is something that isn't matched by mane games in the zombie genre. It's a type of game that doesn't appeal to everyone. It's not a very storyline driven game, aside from the generic story of "we ended up here because of _________ and now we need to make it to this place to get to safety." But storyline isn't really the purpose of the Left 4 Dead franchise. It exists mainly for online cooperative play, and it does this very well.

One of the biggest strengths of this game is the fan-driven expansions. There are a TON of addon maps for L4D2 that in many cases are vastly better than the original maps (which themselves are usually very good). Many of the addon maps are a lot more expansive and much longer than the originals. Whereas the original maps generally have one set path without many alternative routes, many of the addon maps can be quite different depending on which turns one decides to take. One can encounter entirely different obstacles and situations by replaying a map and going in different directions.

Some of my personal favorites are Beldurra and Beldurra 2, Questionable Ethics and Questionable Ethics: Alpha Test, Absolute Zero (which takes place at an arctic military base), Journey to Splash Mountain, which takes place at Disneyland in California and is amazingly true to the actual environments and displays at Disneyland and even includes going on rides while fighting off hordes of the infected. There are many other addon maps as well. Some of them are clearly fairly amateur, but many of them are completely original and present entirely new challenges. It keeps the game amazingly fresh. New ones are still coming out all the time.

The various versus modes are a lot of fun as well. Getting to play as the special infected is a lot of fun, and it makes for a totally different game experience. It's great fun when you get to be the tank especially.

If you prefer games with an in depth single player story mode, this may not be the game for you. But for online cooperative play, it's hard to beat IMO. It requires real teamwork and benefits greatly from actual communication with your teammates. It keeps things fresh by not always spawning the same things in the same places. There are some scripted events (like almost always spawning two tanks during the finale crescendo event), but most things are randomized. You never know when a charge is going to run out and tackle you, when you'll get grabbed by a smoker, or when you'll get covered in spitter goo.

It's also worth pointing out that for new players, there's not much point in getting Left 4 Dead 1. If you buy L4D2 on Steam, it includes ports for all of the L4D1 maps over to the L4D2 engine with improved physics, a wider variety of weapons, and other various improvements to the gameplay without actually changing the maps or game experience. There are a handful of addon maps that only work on L4D1, but these are pretty few and far between.

edit - if anyone wants to get down on a round of L4D2, my steam name is the same as this one, QuantumCurt. Feel free to add me.

 

Played Left 4 dead and Left 4 dead 2. Both awesome. Still waiting on L4d 3

 

Love the lfd series. Ellis is one of my most beloved characters ever.