This little project has gotten much more popular than I ever expected, so I get questions about it every now and then. Here's my attempt to answer some of your common concerns.

Q: Do you take suggestions?

Yes! This is a project I'm working on for the community's benefit, and I can't find every campaign on my own. I have a large backlog, but please send your suggestions regardless. I'm hearing about new stuff all the time.

Q: Will you review my campaign?

Yes, but only if I can reasonably call it finished. If your campaign is still in development, I prefer to just give a long list of feedback instead. Amateur mistakes can pile up quickly, and I try to avoid giving a 2/5 to someone who's clearly still learning or polishing their work.

Q: Why are you doing this?

A few years ago, I tried to find a list of custom campaign reviews because I didn't play L4D2 very much from 2014 to 2018 and I wanted to catch up on the good stuff. At the time, I only found one list, and I wasn't a fan. Some of the reviews were way too long, and a lot of insults were directed at the mod creators. I had just released a surprisingly popular campaign myself, so I decided it was time to make my own reviews with two core principles: keep it short and don't be mean. I haven't always been 100% successful, but I'm trying my best.

Q: What qualifies you to be doing this?

Technically nothing because this isn't a real job, but I've released several popular L4D2 campaigns and I'm also a professional writer, with a college degree and a national award and everything. I hope these credentials are enough for you to trust me, but it's fine if you don't.

Q: Why are your reviews so short?

I limit myself to 1,000 characters because I have a tendency to ramble — you may have figured that out already if you made it this far. This project is intended to be a helpful community resource, and I find that people are more likely to finish reading a review if it's short.

Q: What makes a campaign good?

Everyone has different tastes, but to me, the two main pillars of map design are competence and uniqueness. A good campaign needs at least one, and the best campaigns have both. Quality level design that's well paced and simple to navigate is all well and good, but I also think every mod should strive for a "unique selling point." Having gameplay, aesthetics, or narrative elements that you can't find in vanilla L4D2 is an underrated way to make a mod worth a player's time.

Q: What does an "unscored" review mean?

It could literally mean anything, but I've used it twice under similar circumstances. Right now, I guess it means "I had to skip massive chunks of this campaign because I couldn't beat it legitimately, and I did not enjoy my time with it. However, there are diehard fans who love this campaign, so it's clearly doing something right and I wouldn't feel comfortable giving a bad review because of issues that might be unique to me."

Kind of a mouthful, huh?

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Q: Why did you give Chernobyl a 5/5 if you had so many problems with the finale?

To me, 5-star campaigns aren't all the same — they exist on a spectrum, essentially. Chernobyl is probably about as low as a 5/5 can get because I'm still iffy about the finale, but the first four chapters are transcendent so I think it evens out. Maps 1 through 4 are some of the best L4D2 levels ever made and I couldn't ignore that just because of a messy finale.

Q: Why did you give Back to School a 4/5 if you said it's a "must-play" campaign?

I really like Back to School and I think it deserves its reputation, but the last time I played it, tons of custom textures and sounds were missing. I also have significant disagreements with the structure of the final map — long story short, it should've been split in two.

These issues are forgivable on their own, but together I think they justify dropping a star. It's still about as good as a 4/5 can get, though, and if you're lucky enough to avoid the issues with missing assets I'd say it's easily a 5/5. Such a shame that the fabled 1.7 update was never released...

Q: Why did you give Dark Wood a 4/5 even though you had so many complaints?

Dark Wood is a campaign I think about a lot. It's one of the most interesting mods in L4D2's history, and my thoughts on it are so complicated I could easily write a 15-page essay covering it. I really wanted to talk about the two different versions of Dark Wood in my review because I think they're both worth playing, but unfortunately this didn't leave me with a lot of room for compliments and I regret that.

Suffice it to say, 90% of Dark Wood is a sublime masterpiece, with outstanding aesthetics and unique gameplay scenarios that are expertly paced. Its tone and atmosphere are unmatched as an unforgettable collage of horror tropes from every corner of the genre. However, some sections are just... genuinely awful. The campaign ping-pongs in quality, either being a 5/5 most of the time or a 1/5 on a few occasions. For that, I don't regret giving it a 4/5 as an overall experience.

Q: Why did you review Dead Before Dawn four times?

Dead Before Dawn is a very popular and historically significant campaign, but it has changed a lot since its initial release for L4D1 in 2009, especially after all the unofficial fan edits. A lot of people have been confused over the years about why there are so many versions of the same campaign, including me — so I thought I'd finally set the record straight.

Experiencing so many different versions of the same campaign through the years gave me an immense appreciation for its history, even though I wouldn't say every version is worth playing. The director's cut is my favorite, but the extended edition is also a great time — it makes up for being less polished by having an entire extra map.

Hopefully my little research project helps people pick whichever version of Dead Before Dawn suits them best (even if it's the uncut edition).