Challenge

Significantly more difficult than its predecessor.  I have personally played lots and lots of the original Bioshock, on the hardest difficulty setting, and I struggled at points with Bioshock 2 on Medium.  The presence of vita-chambers, however, do skew the game's difficulty a bit.  Vita-chambers   revitalize you yet leave your enemies with all the damage you've already inflicted, essentially giving you an infinite amount of lives.  One major knock I would have on this game is that the difficulty do not vary much.  After getting through the game without too much difficulty on Medium, I was able to play through about half of the missions on Hard, and really didn't see any big differences in the challenge.  Sure, there were more enemies, and sure, these enemies took a little longer to die, but in the long run, one or two enemies or another inch of health bar shouldn't make the difference between Medium, a setting for casual gamers, and Hard, the setting for the hardcores.

Graphics

The colors, structures, sights, and sounds of Rapture are even more impressive than they were in the original.  And that's saying a lot.  Bioshock's decaying utopian city of Rapture is one of the most immersive and atmospheric environments to hit the video game industry.  However I will say it can be a little dizzying sometimes, all the lights and colors can sometimes give the gamer sensory overload, playing for any more than two hours would usually finding myself with a headache afterwords.

Replay Value

A bit of disappointment in this category.  The original Bioshock, although it lacked multiplayer, the campaign was very replayable, having several little side quests and hidden areas, leaving the player to discover something new every time they play.  In Bioshock 2, you visit almost every part of each area through natural game progression, making it no fun to go through the areas again.  Another let down, especially for big players of the original, is the difficulty of the gamerscore, or trophies in the case of PS3 players.  In the first game, it was possible for the skilled player to acquire all the achievements the game had to offer simply by giving the campaign a solid two or three through playthroughs.  With the added multiplayer in 2, some of the achievements require the gamer to log I would guess 50 hours plus of online multiplayer, in addition to the 3 or so campaign playthroughs to get all the gamerscore.  People may look at the multiplayer and say it increases the game's replay value infinitely, but I can tell you already I won't log nearly as many total hours on Bioshock 2 as I did on its predecessor.

Narrative

Another disappointment here.  The storyline in the original Bioshock was the most fascinating and interesting plots I have ever seen in a game, and Bioshock 2 didn't even approach that level.  The storyline revolves around you playing as one of the first “Big Daddies,” big hulking men in diver's suits with drills instead of right arms.  Each Big Daddy has one “Little Sister” to protect, and your mission throughout the game is to find and reclaim yours, now fourteen years old because you have been dead for ten years at the start of the game.  The story with this Sister, Elanor, is very interesting, but the problem is that none of the levels quite make you feel connected to the whole plot, something Bioshock 1 did very well.  Each level and mission seems just like nothing more than yet another roadblock on the way to Elanor, the plot feels very disjointed.  Although it does have flaws, it is still a Bioshock game, and therefore does have a very interesting story, even if you only get it in bits and pieces.

Ease of Controls

No problems here whatsoever.  The controls are very intuitive, I honestly can't think of one awkward control or button sequence.  Combat can be a little stop-and-go at times, but when you have essentially eight weapons in each hand, how could it not be.  One of the main functions, hacking machines and turrets, has been totally overhauled from the original, and now is much less frustrating and more intuitive.

Social Playability

This is where the developers put in their major change from the original game.  They have added an entire multiplayer mode, which I would describe as a dumbed-down version of Team Fortress 2, one of the most popular multiplayer games of the current gaming generation.  Although I don't think Bioshock lends itself to the whole “get-together-and-play” idea yet, it is certainly moving in that direction.  Much like TF2, cooperation and strategy can be very helpful in the team games, which promotes being social and talking to other players, whether they're friends or strangers.  The possibilities for social playability in this series went from non-existent to pretty decent, so a big plus for the sequel here.

Overall

While campaign-wise Bioshock 2 is not even comparable to its predecessor, the enjoyable multiplayer does a good job making up for that.  Unfortunately the single player is dreadfully short, and doesn't lend itself to replay very well, so if you're more of a campaign gamer like myself, you might feel a little ripped off paying $60 for a eight or nine hour campaign.  What Bioshock 2 loses in single player it almost makes up for in the new multiplayer, making it still one of the better games on the market.

Final Grade

Final Grade:  B.  Would be a B+ or an A- if the single player wasn't so dreadfully short.

Replay value

Like I stated in my conclusion of the consumer review, you don't get very much bang for you buck at all with the single player campaign.  If your child will be very interested in the multiplayer than you are certainly getting your money's worth, but if not, your paying $60 for only a few days of play.

Social Playability

The added multiplayer gives Bioshock 2 the potential for social play, something its predecessor lacked.  The multiplayer by itself still isn't spectacular, but it is certainly fun and is something your kids will play with their friends from time to time.

Objectionable Content

Not really much interesting to talk about here, Bioshock 2 is really just your standard M rated game.  Lots of violence as always, some blood and gore, some inappropriate language.  Not much sexual content, actually I don't recall there being any at all.  The bloody kills and the frequent “F-bombs” are really the only things making this an M game.

Addictiveness

I have never really found Bioshock addicting at all.  When your child gets to the end they will likely feel the same need to sit down for a few hours and finish as any game with a decent plot should.  Once again, not much to worry about here.

*An additional note to parents:  This may not apply to anyone else, but I just wanted to mention something that I experienced playing this game.  I noticed that after playing for about three hours or so on a few occasions, I started to develop a small headache and a little nauseousness in one case.  I'm not a medical expert by any means, but I do get the sense that the color schemes, constant animations, and lighting in the game might be a bit of a strain on the eyes.  If your child is playing for longer than two hours, you may want to watch out for symptoms like I described.

Academic Perspective

One of the things Bioshock has been most known for is its very deep and intricate setting, the underwater city of Rapture.  The city provides a great example of a setting that is clearly not real, but is still very convincing and makes it look like something that could really exist.  To take a cliché from the Rapture world, they have built the impossible.  A realistic seeming underwater city set in 1960?  Ridiculous.  But they managed to make it very realistic, a feat in itself.  Bioshock 2, just as much as the original, could certainly be used for research on immersion in games in relation to the setting and graphics, as the representative of the “realistic but fictional” category.

Another observation that can be made is with the improved hacking system and the general more smooth and less stop-and-go gameplay, the player is likely to experience more flow.  Theories that more smooth gameplay leads to more flow could be tested very well by simply comparing players after playing Bioshock 1 and Bioshock 2 and testing for feelings of flow.