On paper, The Darkness 2 is a "linear, first-person shooter with some neat twists." It sounds boring, and it was every time I played the game in a preview session before it launched. I'd hole up at some PR office in Manhattan and they'd run down a prepared spiel about "quad-wielding" or "the Darkling." The what?

In reality, The Darkness 2 is a beautiful, hand-drawn game from a team with derivative dreck like Dark Sector and Pariah in its past. It also has surprisingly realistic and impressive voice acting, which gets paired with gorgeous art direction right off the bat for a "last time on The Darkness" reintroduction.

But as impressive as the game's art style and voice acting chops are, it's not very easy to shape a marketing-driven preview session around technical aspects like that. But that's the case for most of what's so great about The Darkness 2 -- touches, moments and experiences that don't fit onto a bullet point list.