On the surface, Payday 2 , like the first Payday, looks like Left 4 Dead with cops instead of zombies. You play one of four characters (Hoxton, Chains, Dallas, or Wolf) as you carefully maneuver through dangerous areas and into secure locations only to get out and away before you're overrun by the...

Lots of variety in how missions play out; Loads of customizable weapons, masks, and skills.

Mediocre graphics and mindless AI kills the immersion; Needs to be played online to be enjoyed

Fittingly, PayDay 2 is a lot like a bank heist. If you pick your crew well, everything comes together like a well-oiled machine, and everybody gets rich. If, on the other hand, you leave the guy with the IQ of a toaster in charge of grabbing the money while you guard the hostages, you've booked...

Deep strategy; Terrific sound; Intense gunfights

Inconsistent graphics; Broken single-player

If you've ever seen the movie The Italian Job or Oceans 11 , you've probably come away from the experience thinking that you should get into international thievery. Then you come to your senses, realize that it wouldn't be anywhere as easy as it was in the movie, and move on with your day.

+Customization Galore; +Great Co-op / Online

-Poor Solo experience

Payday 2 is the follow up to 2011's Payday: The Heist, by Swedish studio Overkill Software (recently acquired by Starbreeze, developers of The Darkness and Chronicles of Riddick). It is a co-op heavy first-person shooter, where the goal is to basically be a dirtbag criminal.

Fun; intermittently addictive co-op gameplay; Skill trees and customizable equipment offer incentives; Good soundtrack

Difficulty level is wildly variable; Essentially no capacity for single-player; Weak graphics

Movies tell us the life of a successful criminal needs to be free from attachment. Unless you want to end up doing a dime in last season's orange jumpsuit, don't cozy up to anything you can't drop in thirty seconds when you smell those handcuffs coming around the corner.

Filled with tense heists and frantic gunplay; Lots of gritty underworld texture; Involved missions with plenty of variables to ease the repetition

Unplayable without a teammate or two; AI ranges from predictable to bad; Often devolves into uninspired horde mode gameplay

We sometimes yearn for an FPS that flips Call of Duty 's "shoot first, think later" script - and Overkill's heist-focused shooter, PayDay 2 , delivers that exact experience. Through its mix of stealth, strategy, and shootouts, PD2 keeps the combat experience fresh and engaging, even despite moments...

+ Engenders co-op strategy on par with, + Insane level of weapon and character customization; good value for $40

? What kind of ragtag heist group starts off

Ken resorts to a life of crime in the follow-up to Overkill's unique co-op shooter. See how it fares in our full review.

+ Lots of job types; + Playing with friends is a blast; + Improved shooting mechanics; + Unique concept

Playing solo; Production values

" Payday 2 " is a substantial improvement upon the original. It's fun, focused, and requires frenetic management of your team and resources in order to succeed. There's a decent progression system, although I do feel the unlock system is too harsh.

With friends, Payday 2 delivers a multiplayer experience unlike anything else. The levels are wonderfully complicated and the leveling system is incredibly deep. Too bad the learning curve keeps the game just out of arm's reach for most newcomers.

It's time for a history lesson. The heist genre goes back long before the original Payday or even the colourful antics of Kane & Lynch. It also pre-dates the GTA series. We can find its roots in arcade game Bonanza Brothers, Security Alert by First Star (both offering multiple locations to loot) and...