The game received a mixed reception from critics, criticizing its over-use of shaky cam on its visual style (which caused discomfort and nausea on some critics and players), controls, excessive violence, glitches, game length and level design, with some critics describing it as "unpleasant" due to the shaky-cam and violence, but praised its voice-acting, music, intensity, general visual aesthetics and graphics, and with some critics praising its unconventional approaches to the genre. Its plot was polarizing among critics, but most of the reception on it was mixed, with some critics praising it and others panning it, with the most common criticism drawn being that the characters were unlikable, however, some critics still praised the characters.
A single-player and multiplayer demo were released on the PlayStation Network on July 21, 2010 and on the Xbox Live Marketplace on July 26, 2010. A demo was released on Steam on July 27, 2010.
Gameplay
Players in the campaign mode of Kane & Lynch 2 take control of Lynch who is backed up by Kane (except in the last mission, where the player takes control of Kane). The online enabled cooperative mode allows one player to take control of Kane. Players can carry two of any weapon they can grab from dead enemies, but unlike the previous game cannot swap weapons between allies. Players can take cover through a button press. While still having regenerating health, players can also get knocked down, though are able to immediately get back up. During single player missions, allies are invulnerable and cannot be given commands, making it unnecessary to look out for them. Unlike Dead Men, the PC version does not support split-screen co-op.
Multiplayer
Fragile Alliance returns along with two new variant modes (Undercover Cop and Cops & Robbers). The returning mode still has a group of players attempting to grab as much money as possible while escaping police forces and possible traitors. Undercover Cop follows the same fashion while a randomly chosen player must prevent the team from escaping. Cops & Robbers has a group of player controlled police officers going against the criminals still planned to grab money and escape.
The end of each match will allow players to buy new weapons from their heist money.
There is also a single player variant called Arcade where players must accumulate as much money as possible for high scores while surviving increasingly difficult rounds.
Synopsis
Setting and characters
Dog Days takes place four years after the end of the first game, where the pair have parted ways. Lynch has started a new life in Shanghai with a girlfriend named Xiu, working for a crime organization led by English-born expat Glazer. When Glazer tells Lynch about a plan to smuggle guns to Africa, Lynch contacts Kane for aid in return for a split in the deal. The money would not only help them retire but also benefit Kane's estranged daughter Jenny (who survived the events in Dead Men).
Plot
Immediately after Kane arrives in Shanghai, Lynch forces his friend to help on an errand: threatening an informant named Li "Brady" Lung. The plan goes badly and a chase through gang territory ensues. After shooting a number of gang members, the pair corner Brady and his girlfriend in a wet market. A quick firefight ensues, and Kane accidentally shoots Brady's girlfriend. Brady calmly commits suicide.
The next day Kane and Lynch talk to Glazer about the smuggling operation, but their limousine is ambushed by Brady's gang. After a firefight on the highway and through the streets, they are told the leader of their attackers is a crime lord named Hsing. Kane, Lynch and Glazer's mercenaries raid Hsing's sweatshop headquarters and capture him. During an interrogation, Hsing reveals the girl Kane shot was the daughter of an exceptionally high-ranking Politburo official called Shangsi, and that anyone friendly with the two men is effectively open season. Upon hearing this Glazer's men turn on Kane and Lynch, who are then forced to kill their former associates in order to hide the truth from Glazer. They then escape the police and Hsing's gang.
Lying low in a restaurant for a couple of hours, Lynch tries to call Xiu and tell her to meet him so they can flee Shanghai, but she doesn't pick up. Suddenly a Chinese SWAT team arrives. Kane and Lynch kill the policemen, then race to Xiu's apartment as she must also be a target. Discovering her apartment complex has been taken over by Hsing's men, the pair fight through the building, and find Xiu being held at gunpoint by Hsing. Kane suggests they kill Hsing immediately, but fearing for Xiu's safety Lynch knocks Kane unconscious and surrenders.
Kane, Lynch, and Xiu are brutally tortured by Hsing in a bathroom. Believed dead, Lynch is dumped in an alleyway. When he regains consciousness he kills Hsing and saves Kane, but is too late to save Xiu, who has been raped and skinned alive. Both Kane and Lynch are naked and badly lacerated with box cutters through the torture method death by a thousand cuts, but they still escape into the city, fighting their way through another SWAT team in the process.
After finding clothes, the pair arrive at Glazer's arms deal in a shipbuilding complex, naively hoping Glazer hasn't heard about their problems. Glazer does already know the truth about Shangsi's daughter's death and orders his men to kill them—but Kane and Lynch manage to annihilate the gang and corner Glazer, who begs for mercy and reveals that he has a plane that can be used to leave Shanghai. He is then killed by a military sniper, who they realize was sent by Shangsi who has used Glazer to entrap the pair. After fighting through many PLA soldiers and policemen, Kane and Lynch board a freight train leaving the area, thinking they're finally out of trouble. However the train is stopped and they are captured by the military.
While being transported by helicopter to meet Shangsi, Kane and Lynch hijack the vehicle, use the onboard weapons to gun down other helicopters, and force the pilot to land on Shangsi's skyscraper. They slaughter the security personnel and destroy much of the building before confronting Shangsi in his own office. Impressed by their skills, Shangsi offers them a pardon in exchange for serving as his employees. In revenge for Xiu's death, and fearing betrayal, Lynch kills Shangsi out of hand. Kane is distraught, realising they now have no chance of redemption or mercy in China.
Some time later, Kane and Lynch sneak into the Shanghai International Airport in order to fly Glazer's private jet out of the country. However, the authorities are alerted and after shooting their way through several areas of the airport they find the jet partially dismantled in a hangar. With no other choice, the two are forced to flee on to the runway, police hot on their heels, and hijack a commercial airliner heading for Balzar, Ecuador. The game ends with the plane taking off, with Kane and Lynch escaping Shanghai.
Reception
Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days received "mixed or average" reviews on all platforms according to video game review aggregator Metacritic. Nevertheless, it generally scored higher than its predecessor.
In Japan, where the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were ported for release on August 26, 2010, Famitsu gave it a score of two nines and two sevens, for a total of 32 out of 40. The A.V. Club gave the Xbox 360 version a B−, saying that it "practically runs on rails, and at times takes on the rhythms of an old-school duck-and-cover coin-op like Time Crisis." 411Mania gave the game a score of six out of ten, calling it "a game that you should rent first before buying. Some will love that it's a lot like a movie and features lots of shootouts; some will hate it for the same reason. Fortunately, if you try it before you buy it, you'll know almost immediately whether or not this is going to be the game for you." The Escapist gave the PC version three stars out of five, calling it "a decent game, with some fun cover mechanics and tactical complexity, but the visual realism kind of shoots itself in the foot with unrealistic situations and tedious level design." However, The Daily Telegraph gave the Xbox 360 version a score of five out of ten, saying, "As much fun as there is to be had in the multiplayer, it doesn't include any new developments or references to the game's main plot and suffers from the absence of its title characters. The fact that the campaign only takes around five hours to complete further fuels the sense Dog Days is an incomplete and flawed package." Tae K. Kim of GamePro similarly gave the same console version two-and-a-half stars out of five, saying, "I felt like I could have developed some sort of emotional connection with Kane and Lynch if only they had been presented in the right light, but ultimately, the only thing I felt at the end of my time with the game was a vague sense of relief that I didn't have to spend any more time in their company." Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of Zero Punctuation heavily panned the game, saying, "There's nothing fun about the game. No light relief. Just one piece of nauseating unpleasantness after another." He later deemed it as the worst game of 2010.
The producers were sued at a court in Beijing for "vilifying" the "Chinese people".
