Criticism of Dead Rising 2

The original Dead Rising earned generally positive reviews but most reviewers also agreed the save system, as well as the survivors' AI detracted from the game's enjoyment. Criticism of Dead Rising 2 by critics and players have been much less than the original game. 1UP.com's Thierry Nguyen mirrored many critics views that Blue Castle and Capcom ended up "creating the very game that we should have had in the first place." "Dead Rising 2 confirms that this is a development team that listens. Taking the good from the original and cutting or fixing the bad."

Most reviewers still had similar criticisms of certain aspects of the game, particularly load times between locations and the game's psychopaths.

Load times
Critics almost universally criticized the load times. "Anytime either a cut-scene plays or Chuck goes from a mall to a casino to an outdoor strip, the game takes a good thirty seconds or so to load." "As you move between zones you are hit with loading screens...at times it takes away from the immersion when you have enough time to eat a sandwich while waiting." "[E]very cutscene requires its own load screen, both in and out of the cutscene...It really doesn't make much sense that there are so many load screens...there are enormous zones, like the Silver Strip, that seem to manage having twice the space of any of the other zones without needing a single load."

Psychopath battles
Many critics also criticized the psychopaths. "...everyone will probably agree that the psychopaths are a bit of a letdown. Sure, their presentation is satirical and wacky, but their gameplay boils down to rote pattern memorization and exploiting them when they're vulnerable." "After stumbling into one or two of these fights while taking on side missions, I did my best to just avoid them, because I didn't enjoy any of them at all. These battles don't feel like you're actually taking on a new and unique foe. Instead, they feel like barely functional combat puzzles where the main solution is to exploit the AI in one way or another."

In a review of Case Zero, "The Psychopaths are as annoying as ever, mind. They're fantastic characters; grotesque, phantasmagorical parodies of different societal stereotypes that inject the game with some genuinely great dark humour, but they're still very irritating to actually fight. The game just doesn't lend itself well to fast-paced combat, and some Psychopaths in particular feel as if they were designed with a totally different combat engine in mind. Having the right weapons is a must, but you'll rarely be lucky enough to be in this situation on a first encounter, so the fights turn into a war of attrition as you hack away, necking orange juice every few minutes. Again, a very familiar story for anyone who played the first game."

Other criticism
A minority of critics faulted the graphics and game controls.

"The graphics are not up to a second-generation title and the game mechanics can be fiddly."

"Graphics 7.5/10. The graphics of Dead Rising 2 are not the best, the shadows are chunky, the models are probably xbox standard, but that is highly acceptable. The graphics still have some very nice lighting, fire and explosion effects, despite having to cater to having around 7000 + zombies on screen at once. I did notice a few times the frames would dip, but surprisingly the game remained playable, even on online co-op, the game stayed strong."

"My biggest complaint with the game is that it is pretty rough in terms of polish. Framerates suffer due to the large number of zombies crowding the streets and co-op play magnifies these issues."