I adore Left 4 Dead. It's probably my favorite game of 2008, with its clever (and abundant) dialogue and the intense psychological thrill of facing an opposing force that is specifically designed to exploit your weaknesses. I've played through Death Toll more times than I can count, and even made an idiotic video of that finale with a friend.

So I'd jump right into Left 4 Dead 2 this week, right?

Wrong.

I played the first two campaigns when it unlocked on Steam on Monday night, and it was easily apparent that L4D2 is better than its predecessor in every way. It looks far better and more interesting, gore is handled shockingly well, there are more options for every inventory slot...the list goes on for quite a while (and will be explained when I review it).

Then I went to bed, and got up to one of my long days of school (Tuesdays and Thursdays have me in classes until about 8:30 PM). Before school I stopped by a GameStop (I know, part of the problem, but it's the most convenient place) and passingly asked if Assassin's Creed II was in stock. "Yeah," they said, "even the collector's edition."

So I walk out with this gigantic tin with Ser Ezio's brooding face on the cover, and when I got home for my lunch break I popped it in. I played for the hour that I had and thought "This is really good. I should play this when I've gotten through L4D2 a few times."

Cut to me, about 5 days later, having spent an ungodly amount of time collecting every Codex page, Truth glyph, vantage point, and armor set (and 21/22 weapons) in AC2 and about half an hour with L4D2.

So expect a review soon. Expect it to be favorable.

My blogs can be found both here and at 1UP.com.