I actually just came on here to mention Darksiders 2. I just played it for about an 2 hours, not enough time to make a thorough judgement but so far it's pretty enjoyable. The PC port is pretty crap in terms of options, it's VERY clear that almost no effort was made to port it since there are absolutely no PC options except for adjusting screen resolution and your controls, and mouse and keyboard didn't feel natural, but when I use my gamepad it plays excellent. The Mouse+Keyboard controls might be better if you spend time configuring it properly but in a case of EXTREME rarity I found the gamepad to be more fitting and natural. Graphics are pretty 2007-ish at best but that's never been something to deter me from enjoying a game. I realize I started this with a bunch of negatives but I jsut wanted to get that out of the way, overall in terms of pure gameplay it's quite solid and fun.
I never played the first Darksiders so I can't properly compare it (this breaks my usual rule of not playing a direct-sequel first) but the combat is very fluid, with lots of nice combos to learn and some pretty solid platforming the break it all up. The thing I was pleasantly surprised by was the RPG elements. For me 90% of all games can be improved by adding RPG elements, I love them
. I expected a straight forward action-platformer but there is quite a bit of emphasis on experience, equipment, skill points and buying new combo's/skills. You get two weapon types: Your primary Scythe weapons, and a secondary weapon that hits harder but is generally slower. The two weapons can be changed as soon as you find new equipment and used simultaneously to link combo's together and make for lots of badass victories. There is loot to be found on enemies and it's looking like exploration will be rewarded in the bigger levels. The story so far is pretty basic but it's still cool and fits right in with the rest of the game. Death is a decent main character, he seems to have plenty of conviction but so far he doesn't hae a lot of personality.
One thing I will note here is the difficulty. I am pretty much a newbie with this style of game. I've never played much of God of War of Bayonetta or anything in this style of gameplay since Devil May Cry 1, or Soul Reaver 2 (sort of?). It's not that I never wanted to, I just never had much of a drive to go play one since I tend to stick with FPS games and massive RPG's in the last 5 or 6 years.
Now saying this, I find Darksiders 2 REALLY easy. I would recommend anyone that plays these games regularly play on a harder setting than default, because I'm a newb and I restarted because I was not being challenged at all. The entire prologue is easy to beat without sustaining any damage if you pay attention (once you know the basics of course). I might regret upping the difficulty so early on, things may get crazy hard later in game, but I don't want to get bored before things get challenging so I took the plunge. I like being challenged though so I might be over-stating things.
(Edit: I just noticed you can change difficulty on the fly in the options, excellent!)
I'll probably post more about Darksiders 2 when I get further into the game, but from my current perspective this game has the potential to be pretty epic. If I seem to be kind of negative (I notice I made more negative comments than positive) it's not because my overall impression of the game is bad. On the contrary it's well polished, runs beautifully (zero lag, short load times), fluid and fun with a nice sprinkling of RPG elements and a kickass combat system.