t takes slightly over 30 seconds but certainly no more than one minute of playing the Dead to Rights sequel to recognize you’re in trouble. It’s in that brief period of time that you see the bland backgrounds, hear the dull soundtrack, and experience the poor targeting.  For those moments, and for the agonizing hours thereafter, it isn’t difficult to see this game for what it is – generic in every way.

While the first Dead to Rights may have been a little more than a frantic shooter, it somehow still maintained a modicum of excitement and fun throughout its hectic levels. Those elements have been swept away in its sequel and replaced with shoddy production value and endlessly repetitive killing. Like many other recent games, Hell to Pay prides itself on the  mindless and brutal violence that makes it more “adult”. But like so many other titles of this ilk, it fails to back up the savagery with functional gameplay. Your enemies will sometimes stand stock still as you pump them full of lead. Other times you can’t manage to get your gun to target the goon you want. As you get used to the overwhelming regularity of problems like these, you begin to slip off to a nightmarish dream world where your hobby of gaming has somehow been warped into a fiendishly boring chore that is neither fun nor worth your time.

I wish I could offer some redeeming words about the plot or characters that might give fans of the series reason to hope. Unfortunately, the game stumbles and crashes to the ground in this regard as well. Nothing about the story is remotely interesting or even amusing. It serves as little more than a shaky foundational reasoning or why Jack Slate and his stupidly inept dog should move from goon-infested nest to the next. Are they mafia? Are they evil bikers? It doesn’t matter. Shoot them all and move on.

Dead to Rights 2 is a lesson in what happens when there is an unwillingness to evolve or risk new ideas. Jack Slate and his world are carved from such a recognizable cookie cutter that nothing feels impressive and every aspect of the game is quietly forgettable. If you like the series, do yourself a favor and go replay the first one rather than justify its sequel with your attention.