All right, L4D fans, listen up. It's here and I played it. Left 4 Dead 2, the game that really came out of left field for me is sitting up in a private room here in the Los Angeles Convention Center. And, man, they have some great couches.

Brad Hilderbrand and I scored some time on a four person 360 team. We played one of the new campaigns for about 30 minutes. I'll immediately blame our failure on the one guy in our group that insisted on separating himself from the pack. The AI director in L4D2 has been touched up, so now the focus is more on keeping groups of four together. The game actually cooks up enemies ready to destroy those that part from the group.

But there's so much more that's new here. Before we dive into it all the way, I thought it would be a good idea for us to clear something up. Some L4D fans feel a bit cheated by the fact that they're getting a full sequel rather than some inexpensive DLC. So I asked one of the folks in the Valve room. I asked him why they chose a solid sequel over DLC. Generically, he told me that there's just too much in the game to make it DLC. The team working on L4D2 wanted to do something a little more intensive, they wanted to commit to the project and pour more energy into it than just straight DLC. They pitched it and they're boss decided the team was passionate enough to deliver the gameplay, new features and story in an exceptional enough way that a full sequel feels warranted.

What's new? There are five new campaigns, weapon improvements, new level specific enemies, a new multiplayer mode, four new characters, five melee weapons and more. It's a big package, and after 30 minutes, I was convinced that this thing was completely worthy of a solid sequel.

The level shown off at the show was called The Parish. Set in Louisiana, or "the big Uneasy," players make their way from a river, through a street, into a park and below an underpass (with what we played, at least). The great part about this level is the fact that it's a day time experience. And as one of the folks from Valve told us, this wasn't simply an art direction choice. Some gameplay mechanics change based on the time of day. Like, for instance, our friend The Witch. She still cries and wails, but she also walks around in the day time rather than sitting and weeping. This makes locating her near impossible…and terrifying.



The four characters are also pretty cool from what we saw. There's (from left to right in the shot above) Nick the rich guy, Rochelle the strong female, Coach the coach (awesome) and Ellis the mechanic. We heard Nick yell something about not messing "with a man in a $3,000 suit! Come on!!!" which immediately piqued the Arrested Development reference chord that rests so heavily in our hearts.

Levels will also see their own unique enemies. So each level has a few enemies that are different from the rest, and they even carry some game changing characteristics. We saw a haz-mat zombie in The Parish. This guy was flam proof; which made one of the new, badass pickups a little useless. There are incendiary rounds in L4D2. Shoot zombies with them and they burst into flames.

Add to this the new super type of zombies. The only one we experienced was the Charger. What an asshole this guy is. I strayed little bit away from the group one time in order to pick up some ammo. That's when I saw this odd looking Tank lumbering in the distance. I started to back up towards the group while shooting. That's when this Tank, which was actually a charger, lowered his head and sprinted at me. He knocked me down and started to pummel the hell out of me. Apparently he'll be able to run through the whole crew, stunning the survivors and brutally beating them one at a time until he's killed.

There are also five melee weapons for use in the sequel. We only know of the axe, the frying pan, the baseball bat and the chainsaw. The axe and the frying pan were in the demo. Both felt great, though the axe was the better for me. I laid quick destruction upon the unfortunate undead that once groaned before me. Lopping of their heads is one of those really satisfying experiences that brings a grin to your face.

Left 4 Dead 2 is slated to release on November 17th of this year for both the 360 and the PC.