You're too old to be happy anyway. That is one of the lines that emblazoned a piece of marketing material for Kane & Lynch 2 and despite the many years since I've seen it I've never been able to come up with anything more fitting to describe the game.

The entire work from story to controls embodies this kind of philosophy. The idea of a game that hates you as the player. A game that itself hates games. An anti game. And to do this is no easy feat. Many games have taken the idea of confronting the player with the violence we commit in titles as early as hotline miami, however this game does so in a way, that for me, feels far more poignant. In hotline Miami killing is fun, every level is fast paced, gory to no end, and the scoring system incentivises you as the player to be as efficient and brutal as possible. The game asks if I like killing and the answer would of course be yes. How could I not. I know none of this is real and when the only option I'm given to interact with a virtual world is through the barrel of a gun this kind of senseless violence will always be the outcome. So for a game to truly make the question of do you like killing feel like it's saying much of anything you would have to make the killing feel as bland and as meaningless as possible, no bright colours, fast movement, scoring.

Kane and Lynch 2 manages to create one of the least fun killing experiences, that still maintains triple A sensibilities, ever. Every single element of the game feels as though it's fighting you. The camera is a shaky mess, with your perspective not being that of the infamous duo but instead a tertiary camera man. Your view shakes to no end and is constantly smeared with just about every piece of filth and glare known. The audio compression makes every moment possible fall flat. Guns sound loud, but not exciting, with bullets sounding like they limply crawl through the air rather than rip it apart. The gunplay itself is an affair anyone who's played a late 2000's cover shooter will be immediately familiar with and it does it's best to introduce nothing new that could even remotely improve the experience. The endless waves of samey enemies, the nothing variation in weapons, the complete lack of a sense of strategy. The gameplay is not a huge power fantasy or an epic struggle against the odds. It's a bland affair of whack a mole. The violence is gratuitous but in no way cathartic. Every character is awful. Our two protagonist can simply only be described as vile. They ruin their own lives and those of everyone around them, even leaving you the player dead on a runway in Shanghai (sort of). The rest of the cast are also awful and only out for themselves. The story leaves with the main characters in a worse position than they started having achieved nothing. Everything was pointless and you leave feeling hollow. After all why should you feel enjoyment from inflicting pain onto others?

This could of course all be written of as a simple coincidence of poor game design but the multiplayer is an entirely different experience. You team up with a group of other random individuals and partake in a heist, with one key twist. You can kill your comrades, and the fewer of them left the more you get come the end. This simple addition creates a fascinating game of social deduction. When do you strike, do you attempt to ally with others, how can you be sure you won't be taken out? The levels you go through feel well put together, logically laid out with cover that makes sense for the environment it's in and clear progression direction while not feeling entirely like a single bland corridor.

The closest parallel this game could draw on is anti war media. Almost all still end up glorifying it to a degree, with there being some form of heroic achievement or battle against the odds taking place, and this sense of achieving something for a greater good is entirely antithetical to war. No one ever truly wins in war. There are only ever losers. As such it can be difficult to portray this reality. After all a work such as this would be sole crushing. There would be no heroic deed done, only pain, loss, and suffering. Everything was pointless and you leave feeling hollow.

It's not misunderstood. It is bad. That's the entire point.