Hotline Miami 2's problems span the entire game, from its overall structure to its plot, the decisions that have been made regarding player characters, ability-modifying masks, and level design.

You kick their heads in, grab their knives, shank the next guy, throw his pipe through a window, shotgun a dog, turn the wrong corner, die in a hail of gunfire, hammer 'R', do it again, hammer 'R', do it again. You slam through doors and send Russian mobsters sprawling to the floor. This is despite it being, in many ways, more or less the same game. Nor is it-and as somebody who loved the original, this is a tough admission-a particularly good game. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number is not a classic.