After playing the first game and not liking it, as well as the Devil's Cartel and somewhat enjoying that. I decided to come back to the 40th Day to see if I still like it and I still do, all though I did wish I got to play the game in coop since it seems to be the way is intended to be played but at the very least playing 40th Day on easy is doable enough and I do get some fun out of it. I would probably say this is the most consistent game in the series. Original Army of Two had terrible controls and a regen health system that made it hard to see when at critical health and Devil's Cartel had a pretty bad story. 40th Day however manages to remain pretty consistent.
I wouldn't call any of these games masterpieces by any means, I do think it does have enough going to have it stand out from other cover based TPS games at the time, particularly with the partner system in how one guy distracts the enemies and has the heat be brought to them while the other sneaks up from behind and takes them out while they are distracted. It does do a good job at selling you on the premise that you are in fact playing an army of two. The arenas are pretty impressive too especially in "the Bund" chapter where there is a lot to maneveur, flank and get the drop on your enemies.
The weapon customization is pretty cool too, letting you add scopes silencers and different parts to your guns and the best part is, your customized weapon is never taken away from you meaning it gives you an incentive to actually use the feature.
Weapons feedback and the guns in general can feel pretty good, I really like the shotgun you get and it has a pretty decent amount of range unlike a lot of video game shotguns, it's not on older Doom levels but it can take enemies out at medium range. Headshots with the shotgun are also really satisfying too.
Only big gripes with the game is that on anything higher than easy, the partner AI can be too inept to help you even a little.
The cover system isn't the greatest, at first it feels like a precursor to the Last of Us and Survivor Trilogy Tomb Raider's cover mechanic in that your player character will go into cover automatically as long as the player is crouched, but then I am tapping the x button and it seems to be doing the Gears of War thing of where your character will be magnatically attached to walls. It's such a shame because it felt like 40th Day came close to solving that issue Gears of War had but then it had stuff I described.
The melee attacks also isn't the greatest either. I will tap the melee button while crouched and there is a 50/50 chance either a stomp animation will happen or the player character will actually do a punch or direct melee attack on the enemy, it's better than the first game's contextual melee but it could've been handled better here.
The mortality system is also half baked and doesn't add much. You save or get a bunch of people killed and it won't really change the game in any meaningful way outside of, "you got x or y killed". Saving innocent civilains is supposed to require stealth but I would do one stealth kill and get detected immediately afterwards. It's not a big deal unless if you really care about how gameplay and themes can be interconnected to tell stories in games.
Overall, 40th Day is the most well rounded game in the series, it isn't super amazing, but at the very least it gets the job done as being a quick beat that is playable alone on easy mode. I really did wish there was an easy and accessible way to play this cooperatively.
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