I'm a big fan of the LoS saga. The first is one of my favourite games of the seventh gen (I liked it a lot more than GoW 3 actually). The music and combat systems are excellent in the sequel. But the stealth is pretty poor and nonsensical (you're freaking Dracula! why would you turn into a mouse instead of a bat? You killed freaking Satanand now you're hiding from cyborgs? ) and the streamlined platforming is something I could have done without. 

The story is also a bit of a mess with too much going on without any real separation between it all and a lot of unexplained elements just thrown in to fake some sort of character growth. But the voice acting and direction are nice enough to at least make it somewhat entertaining.

Still, the core combat is pretty excellent IMO and I think as long as that remains the majority of the game, I'm satisfied with playing it through a couple of times and getting my money's worth. 

I think there's a lot of reason for it to have been panned. As pointed out, a lot of things just don't make sense and just seemed like someone with a lot of pull on the project thought it was a good idea so it was forced into the game. But then they continued great quality in other aspects like combat and music/story-telling. The story itself is weaker IMO, but the story telling is just as good.

I'm not done the game and I feel like I already know what's going to happen so if I end up being right, I'll be disappointed with the story. I picked it up for $10 and I think I'll get around 15 hours of play time out of my first play through so (and I'll sound spoiled here) maybe I'll be feeling a little ripped off. But if you get it for $5 and liked the combat of the first - there's a very fun and responsive game here for you.

I'd say so, yeah. I'd put it in the same tier as Just Cause 2 in a sense. Good game mechanics bogged down by other crappy decisions but if you're in the right frame of mind and are really into some solid gameplay mechanics without taking everything too seriously, you'll have a blast.

It's a 2 months old game that's giving them a lot of extra work. I find it ok.

Just like Civ. Beyond Earth being 40% off is also a very good deal.

Well considering the state of the game when it released they didn't put enough work in it so any work now is deserved

Oh wow, I just checked out the LoS2 review scores at a bunch of places and I didn't realize it was so terribly panned. Yeah it's certainly better than a low 60 rating. I only checked because I wanted to know more about Killer Is Dead (which is on sale at the Humble Store: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/p/killerisdead_nightmareedition_storefront) and wanted to see how the two compare.