You're right; they do look different. The second one is darker.

Like what I see re: new HUD vs old.

This post turned me off from buying the game, thanks.

Everything I'd read to this point made it sound like the city was completely different. I was unaware they meant they made it look like every other game.

What's wrong with bright colors? Seriously? Also, lazy devs are lazy.

That's a lovely gray sky.  Lovely gray ocean.  New dull gray HUD!  

Seriously, I'm with Shawn, what the hell happened to the bright color palette?  Also, why do we need to be generic space marines when the original character design was unique in its own right?  I'm still buying but man those comparison shots are depressing.

Count me in the "bleh" camp regarding the new look. If I want to leap around a city painted in early Post Apocalypse, I'll play InFamous. Crackdown's comic book-ish palette was one of its strong visual attractions.

Guys, by the way: The Crackdown 2 shots were taken at night. That's why it's darker and grayer. I updated the story to reflect that.

Crackdown 1 was still colorful at night, though!  This just looks dingy -- like a regressive move from Vice City to GTA3.  Combined with the lack of female characters, this game is now all the way off my radar.

Now I want to go back to the first game and find the last few agility orbs I was missing, complete with Lupe Fiasco's "Food and Liquor" as my soundtrack.

I'm psyched- As long as I've got a map full of agility orbs, I'm a happy camper. The combat in the first game was really well done, but I found myself ignoring it more often than not to go orb huntin'.

It's tough to tell from just screenshots, but I hope the game maintains its comic book style, as well.

I don't think the time of day has anything to do with it. Look at the difference between the stuff in the HUD, they've completely sucked the colour from this game.

Pacific City looks like its seen better days.I dunno,it may not be them just trying to "suck the color" out of the game and being lazy.If you closely you can see that some of the buildings and structures have changed abit or have been worn out from poor maintenance.I never did play the first Crackdown,mostly from not having the money for a 360,so maybe it won't be too bad based on preconceptions of screenshots just because some of you think the developers are being lazy.If that's the case,it would just be another Madden or GTA game,and I could easily throw Red Dead Redemption into the fray but that wouldn't be fair.