**Note: this review is only about the character creator, as I couldn't tolerate its weaknesses long enough to finish creating my character. I'll edit it if updates allow me to reach the actual gameplay.** Pre-release promotional material boasted an impressive character creation process, but I nevertheless had low expectations, and still ended up being disappointed in the end. 1. Keyboard navigation is messed up. For example, pressing E rotates your character, but also scrolls down in the menu if your mouse is hovering one of the options. I played on an AZERTY keyboard, which might have made an impact, but A was bound to both rotating the character the opposite way of E, and the equivalent of clicking the left/previous button on options. 2. Some options, like hair colour or skin tone, allow showing a menu with thumbnail previews, while others, like hairstyle, don't. 3. On the subject of hairstyles, there are no ponytails whatsoever, even though it's one of the "custom character 101" hairstyles. I ended up pressing Alt-F4 once I realised I couldn't create a character that would look even somewhat close to what I wanted him to look. I still give two stars because, well, it had some nice stuff, like a decent selection of hair colours.
While I haven't finished the game as of this writing, I think I played enough to write a review. This game has good story, graphics, sound design, overall gameplay, but! I have one issue with it. While stealth is optional in this game, the game encourages you to be as stealthy as possible, but it sadly lacks elements found in other games with optional or mandatory stealth, like detection indicators, a way to mark or locate enemies out of view, that kind of stuff. But, if you don't care about stealth, you can just go all guns blazing, and you won't miss a lot of the experience.
Graphics: 7/10. This game has better graphics than The Dark Descent. Sounds: 9/10. It contributes a lot to the atmosphere of the game. Gameplay: 8/10. This game lacks the inventory system and the sanity meter from the first game. Horror: 10/10.
