Left 4 Dead 2 Four guns, one horde, zero mercy

Playing co-op is the main draw. You move through each campaign with three other survivors, and you must stay together to survive.

Campaigns can be played in co-op, Versus and Survival modes. In Versus, you can also play as the Special Infected, hunting the other team instead of holding a line with them.

Worth knowing before you queue with strangers: the online community is often toxic or hostile.

This is the sequel to Left 4 Dead, with a new set of five expansive campaigns. The five campaigns cover city streets, swamps and cemeteries on the road from Savannah to New Orleans.

You take one of four new survivors. The survivors, story and dialogue are all new, and the four have their own personalities. The maps are well designed, with each campaign feeling like its own stretch of the same long road south.

You fight at two ranges. Up close, you get over 10 melee weapons, including axes, chainsaws, frying pans and baseball bats. You swing a frying pan when the common infected close in, then fall back to your gun when the street opens up.

There is also a wide range of classic and upgraded firearms for longer fights. Three new Special Infected and five new uncommon infected types, with the Mudmen among them, change what each fight asks of you. The pace is fast and relentless, and it is quick to learn.

Behind the scenes, the AI Director reshapes the run around you, shifting which way you go, and adjusts what you face and hear to how your team is doing.

So every run plays differently, which makes the game highly replayable. The difficulty can be adjusted to suit you. It still holds up well despite its age, community-made mods keep the game alive, and it stays fun to come back to after a long break.