This is my early Christmas 2023 gift to the Left 4 Dead 2 community. I spent many hours composing and formatting this Collection, and many, many more hours writing the actual reviews for each Custom Map.

I tried to actually say something of constructive substance for each campaign, as opposed to praising, ranting, or criticizing them arbitrarily.

For similar Custom Map reviews, you can find Kyle H. McCloud's Collection here: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2264239411

And you can find ENDLESS' similar Custom Map reviews Collection here: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2769307412

Juicy and informative

Well done Sir Hawk, the collection gives me

That's an awesome list! Thanks for making it good sir.

Awesome list! I also liked the fact that you mentioned Kyle's and Endless's lists. It is nice to have different points of view. Are you considering updating it over the following months/years? It would be nice to get your insight into more custom maps. Dark Wood, for example, is my favorite custom map, but I do not see it on your list.

One small thing that I think would improve it, is if you had a separate ranking for Creativity / Originality. This other list had Originality as one of their three main criteria; https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=625654184 and I think it made the list better because of that. Sadly, and unlike yours, they did not do a deep review of each map. A lot of maps can be very good, but they might feel too similar to vanilla or other custom maps because of the location, assets or lack of that "New" factor.

The Japanese setting in "Yama" or the storm in "Cold Front" are, in my opinion, very important parts of what made those maps so good. I know you do mention in the review itself when there are cool locations or "Gimmicks", but from the user side of things, it would be better to know, at first glance, which maps are graded higher because of their originality. An originality score would help in that sense.

@sebasgaroz12: Thanks for commenting!

I do in fact have a very large list of Custom Maps to try out and then write Expert Reviews for, but unfortunately I've simply been totally swamped with work and personal projects lately. It often feels like there's no time in the day to just relax and play games. I pretty much wake up, eat, work, sleep, repeat. And you know what all work and no play does to Jack.

I actually did start playing Dark Wood one time in November with friends, but it sadly crashed at the GabeN room easter egg, and we never got back around to playing through it fully before I went on a L4D2 hiatus. I would have made a note about it crashing on the first playthrough in my subsequent review for the map, but my review for it likely would have nevertheless been glowing, just from the initial parts of the campaign that I was able to play.

I like your idea of the Originality score. And I did actually consider adding it as a separate metric. As a reviewer focusing primarily on Expert difficulty playthroughs, though, I mainly prioritize and prize the gameplay, design, flow, etc of Custom Maps over their aesthetics/setting. The Originality/novelty of a map absolutely does affect my overall 'Quality' rating, though not as much as the gameplay, of course.

I love Left 4 Dead 2, playing new custom maps, and writing my Expert Custom Map reviews. I initially started it just as a little list for me and my friends, so that we could come back to and play through the best Custom Maps on Expert difficulty later on. But I then later decided to post them all, polish them all, compile and then cross-link to them all via this list, overcome the Steam character limits, and publish this list; as a way to give back to the L4D2 community.

Unfortunately, it's all a ton of work to do, and not really something that I'd like to do as a career (especially since L4D2 is just one of many, many games that I play on and off). Hence I will only play and write reviews when I'm in the mood to do so, and only after that will I then try to work around Steam's obnoxious character limits in order to try and actually post them here.

However, as I'm currently on a hiatus from L4D2, I can't make any promises as to when I will feel the urge to return to the game, let alone resume writing my extensive Expert Reviews on Custom Maps, posting them, and then adding them into this list. It would likely be a different story if I got paid for playing/writing reviews, but sadly, that's not the case.

@Warhawk

Thank you for the quick response, and thank you for your reviews and recommendations. I understand that sometimes there is no time in the day for playing. Having said that, I look forward to seeing your future reviews when and if you have time to play L4D2 again.