Long and varied maps
Beautiful in some spots
"Challenging"
Fun

Very linear maps
Too many invisible walls and unusable ladders
Missing trigger highlights (see below)

A great challenging campaign but unfortunately I encountered a couple of game killing bugs. Like ogre_x, the generator was not highlightable, but I was fortunately able to trigger it (I think). Unfortunately, the radio was not highlightable and I was unable to trigger it this time, so I was unable to complete the campaign.

The maps are beautiful, but suffer from being too linear. This is not helped by the numerous invisible walls and inaccessible structures in the maps. I feel that if the author wants you to go somewhere, he only gives you one path to do so. Case in point: we came to a collection of trucks blocking our path. The only way through was to climb through an ambulance, even though the trucks were the type where you could normally climb onto the rear. Similarly, invisible walls hem players off chain fences, zombie spawn points, and warehouse shelves. I feel the campaign would feel more believable if players were given more options to explore.

Fortunately, this does not detract from the genius of the campaign, and if the kinks in the finale can be worked out, this map would easily warrant an even higher score. Many thanks!

one of the rare cool campaigns to do in versus
excellent spots for infected
cool layouts
excellent mapping wise
with a tweak here or there will be ace

lacks alot of detail on map 4
true that the rain "sometimes"makes my pc lag big time
floating guns and items

REVIEW UPDATED 8/7/10=as i told heartless we tried this in versus so there the feedback=
map 01 02=excellent no versus issues
map 03 04=flow is broken ie the points stay at 0.floating medi,guns .far z clip not far enough and needs alot of detail like trees on map 4 i think it is.
final map=really good also but needs hints,arrows.
So after playing this 4vs4 we had a great time apart from the issues said above thats a shame.
This can become a versus all timer good work keep it up.

Love the feel and atmosphere and layout of maps except finale
I like the colors
Had a blast
The height differences in map 3 and 4 are great

Finale map is too wide and open, bad for tanks, who are easily butchered
Also, since it's too big and open, the special infected have nowhere to spawn and gets easily shut down
The rain on map 1 sucks up huge framerate

I had a blast on this map. I feel the campaign is geared towards the infected, which is great, and I feel this would make a great versus campaign. All that needs to be changed is the rain on map 1 and the vastnesss of the finale.

- A couple of times I've seen very good scenery, especially the huge bridge, which opens to your view on the way forward.
- The original refuge among the rocks (not home)

- From the first to the second card is impossible to get. Kicks to the desktop without any errors.
- At the last card there is no button to call the rescue.

When I saw the first cards (1 and 3), I thought that this campaign is reminiscent of "Metro 2033" or "Stalker". But this is not what I expected.
It would be less rock and more of the atmosphere of the city, who did not spare the apocalypse.

Difficult to put the estimate: it somewhere between 60 and 75

long campaign, but in a good way
original maps, really enjoyed the ballad
good balance for the difficulty/number of zombies

invisible walls (i saw only a couple)
skybox goes crazy when lights are off, so you have to keep it on, i don't like it :D
FPS where going down when under the rain, didn't experienced it in "hard rain" for exemple
i confirm that server crash when outro begins

Just played it with my friends. We loved this campaign ! As said before, few bugs to solve, but nothing really anooying. Really liked it, think we gonna play it again.

Long and detailed environment
A real knock down drag out fight
Custom Rain effects

Many be a tad too difficult for casual players
Lack of supplies
Frame Rate issues
Rain issues
Crash on Finale

I have played Dead Echo ever since the accidently leaked release back in the L4D1 days and was happy to see it appear here. The new L4D2 version is a welcome addition to my server and has the potential for being a top campaign. DE is long and tough, a real slug-fest through a variety of detailed enviornments. I think it's a shame that the over all difficulty just doesn't allow you to soak in the details along the way. Even on Normal the casual player will find it tough to make it through this campaign. Realising that this campaign is supposed to be difficult I would like to suggest a few more supplies along the way... especially in the safe rooms. An extra ammon pile or just a few sets of pills along the way would tone down the map so the "normal" players could enjoy a more casual pace without tipping the scales for the advanced or expert players. The lack of supplies also means a lack of dimension in gameplay. Every map seemed to turned into a "huddle together and melee spam your way to the saferoom". You really couldn't explore much which is a crying shame given the expansive layout. My opinion is that casual players might avoid this map due to it's length and difficulty.
There were a few glitches we noticed along the way- the first was a serious frame rate drop at the door leading to the ally/elevator. if you walked up to the door frame rates dropped into the single digits for all of us. Second was the rain effects. They were truly awesome but there were times when you could "get above" the rain... standing on top of cars in the junkyard... and spots where you could see a hard edge to where it was raining and where the rain stopped. No big deal, we actually were amused by it.
The only major gripe is the finale crash. We all made it to the rescue vehicle only to be thrown to desktop... we couldn't even celibrate our well deserved victory over this tough campaign. There are plenty of other campaigns out there that don't crash on finale so I'm not 100% convinced this is entirely a "Valve issue" but I'm not a mapper so I reserve the right to be told I'm wrong :)
Considering the length, detail and difficulty of this campaign you have to appreciate the work put into it. Other then a few very minor glitches, the crash on finale and some personal preferences on difficulty this is a totally solid campaign. It's a huge file (500meg) but worth every kilobit. A 9 out of 10 offering with the potential for a near perfect score.

-Complex map geometry.
-Flawless texture work.
-No visible brush errors.
-Custom rain effects.
-Fun in Versus Mode.

-EXTREMELY poor optimization of the rain effects causes a MASSIVE loss of framerate.
-Skybox changes color occasionally.
-AI director doesn't work properly in Versus Mode on The Supermarket.
-Jockey and Hunter can get stuck in the map geometry under the fence just outside of the starting safe room in The Supermarket.
-Ghosts are sometimes spawned outside of the map boundaries in The Supermarket.
-Level design of The Supermarket makes no sense whatsoever.

While I am very much a fan of the original Dead Echo campaign, this doesn't even come CLOSE to doing it justice. It's a VERY shoddy port at best. Some of these oversights are HUGE! The AI Director does not work on map three in Versus Mode, so no distance is recorded, regardless of how far you make it. The rain on the second map, while being aesthetically impressive, is VERY poorly optimized. I'm running an ATi Radeon HD 5850 1 GB with four gigs of RAM and a 3 GHz dual-core processor, and I'm going from an otherwise constant, silky-smooth 60 FPS down to 10. That's ridiculous. What's even better is that there's no rain whatsoever in the next map. Either tone it down, or make it more consistent. I'm giving this campaign a 35 because I know a lot of work went into it on your end, but what you've released is a very incomplete package that pales in comparison to the original release. It deserves better.

General flow of the campaign.
Propably the longest campaign for the game so far.
Atmosphere is like playing trough the whole L4D1.
Bunch of events won't let you rest.

Beginning of first map. Why is there an ammo pile?
Bot/s rush out of the start saferoom. Nav error?
Couple of silly invisible walls.
Big fps drops at some points in the street map.
Server crashed when outro was supposed start. :/

My favorite custom campaign for the game so far. If you liked the original Left 4 Dead Campaigns and still hoped for bit of extra challenge, download and play trough it right now!

very good design and game play. perfect for both noobs and adv players. lots of eye candy and pace.
at the same level as Valve's maps.

map 4 should be made harder to complete

one of the best campaigns i've played and i strongly recommend it! very good job.

Second map "saferoom" was a nice touch
Solid design
Lots of meele options
Passing stuff
GNONE CHOMPSKI
The toxic waste part can be great in Vs
Bridge part
Rescue map is really long

Size (I mean, half a gig? wow)
Easy (if you don't consider bots stupidity as a difficulty factor)
Rain inconsistency
Skybox issues
Invisible walls in some places (mostly around trucks, to block the way)
Although long, the rescue map has too much ammo/medikits/defibs
Tank spawns right in front of the helicopter

A nice, easy campaign (apart from the finale). It did have a lot of supplies, a lot of meele and a lot of Grenade Launchers, but also a lot of hordes, so it kinda balances out.

good legnth
detailed
varied environments

fps drops in a few areas
crashed before credits

even though it crashed before the end credits it still deserves a 90+ im sure it will be fixed

Update to version 1.5

- some improvements
- significantly better flow in finale map by removing of generator button
- better navigation in finale map
- 2 tanks parallel make finale challenging and exciting


Updated review to version 1.4

- more challenging with less med kits and stuff
- much better panic events
- map 4 improved significantly
- finale map slightly improved

- still too much med kits in map 4 behind police car
- crash to desktop after entering the escape vehicle

version 1.5:

It's a very good campaign now and it's indeed very difficult in expert.

Excellent maps. the different areas are so cool. a lot of pickups. superb lighting and design. great atmosphere. high re-playability.

none i can think of tho i'd love it if there'd be more tanks at the end.

Keep up the good work. this game could use this level of maps.
A must have campaign.

-long campaign but interesting
-great detail and textures
-realistic affects(rain, ash)
-horde amount is good

-minor small textures missing(purple checkerboard)
-Finale map is a bit too big I think considering where you have to go to be rescued
-more ammo dumps
-seems to be an issue with the melee weapons flickering with other melee weapons.

I really like this campaign. The attention to detail shows the author's dedication. The forward progress was smooth and I knew, for the most part, where to go. I really liked the rain and how realistic it appears(Ie: hitting the ground/puddles). The ash at the end was neat too. My FPS remained solid thru the entire campaign, around 60fps.
I did have issues with the melee weapons flickering between other rmelee weapons when I would hold one in my hand, and when I would swing the club, for instance it wouldn't completely show this action.
Overall, great map/work, I definitely will continue to play it again.

-Nice Deisgn
-Nice maps taken from left4dead1
-Nice hordes Alarm

-Last Stage was too big of an area

Nice job well done.

Really good gameplay
creative use of l4d2 features

server crash on outro
second long map with too few medkits
third and fourth map had a bit too many medkits
Not visible that you could press the generator (took a while to figure out)
The radio was not selectable as well (also took a while)

Fix the crash bug and the rating will go up! A really nice campaign overall.

-First level is really fun/hard.
-Janitor lift is pretty cool
-zombies come from everywhere
-Rain impact particles

-End gets boring
-after first few levels nothing stand out.

Decent campaign.

long
nice atmosphere

fps drops in some areas

wow godsgift as if the way you abuse the rating system wasnt bad enough you are now advertising on other peoples pages. why not leave a rating if you think its so great?

reply to godsgifts above comment-

Oh please godsgift playing the victim lol. You are leaving just about the same message on all the high rated campaign pages not just these 2. First thing you mention is your finished campaign. If you dont need advertising why are you on other sites telling people to download it lol.

very good texture and adventure.one of the best i played. great amount of items

couple of bugs and hard to find buttons to turn off hordes.

i found it a very good custom campaign.keep up the good work.

+ Nice Design.
+ Horde size.
+ Usage of ammo & supplies.
+ Textures.
+ Nice size for each map.
+ Lighting.

- Crash on finale.

Very nice.

difficult
VERY difficult
did i mention dificult
nice crescendo event in drain pipe
deatiled

hardest map I've played yet
glitch with the melle weps
too many hordes
not enough weps
bugs and glitches along the way

I know the point of the map is to be challengin but that was too much
WAY
TOO
MUCH

+ Many work / Nice Work
+ Many hords
+ Nice final (with APC)

- First map: no weapons :s
- Final map: no message on radio to know if event begin
- Not realist

The Epsilon League was here! We tested this campaign! Nice campaign.

Long levels.
Good gameplay.
Interesting finale.
Ladder part.

Can be very difficult at times, (but that doesn't affect the score)
Finale is too open in the middle.

The campaign is really fun and definitely worth downloading and playing with friends.

+Campaign size
+Locations
+Supplies

+Bridge part

-Got killed 2 times before realizing where the APC was waiting in the finale

Very entertaining

Some inspired parts in each map.
Good flow through half of the campaign.
Versus capable.
Some areas with nice details.

There are areas of each map that need to be tightened up or decorated:
Map 1) the incredibly long hallways leading to the saferoom: not good for campaign nor versus.
Map 2) the scaffolding lift event on the side of the building with the impossibly long ladder at the end. Is there another way to do this?
Map 3) the car alarm right outside of the beginning saferoom door. There is no reason to not trigger it with the door shut.
Vis problem behind the wing of the crashed plane: you can see zombies disappear behind it.
The awkward and misplaced looking toxic waste lake behind the shopping center.
Map 4) The bridge in the canyons appears out of the skybox, and the impossibly tall ladder at the end of the canyons is never good for versus, or bots for that matter who tend to fall.
Finale) the area leading up to the fort is sparse, and the APC appears in an awkward place. I would have expected that it crashed through the gates at the main area.

It is a shame: this map has so many parts that look professionally designed, stiched together with secions that look as mediocre as they play. That gives it a half-done feel, where one section produces a "wow", and you turn the corner into a stretch of blocky, empty architecture and mazes of shelving units and vehicles.
I appreciate the hard work and talent that went into this, and I know that mapping such detail takes both. But the inconsistency keeps this from being a keeper for me. With some more work, this campaign could be a classic.

Just as in l4d1, his map has the potential to be one of the great l4d coop maps. It's big, complex and hard.

It's a well thought out setup with lots of potential.

Just as in l4d1 it in't quite there. In fact the l4d1 campaign is probably more complete and balanced. Some of the maps, which were hard, have got a lot easier (3,4,5)..

The bots can't handle the pathing especially in maps one and two, getting stuck all the time.

Some texture issues on map5 (inside large barns leading to the finale)

Green skybox when going round the corner from the saferoom in map 3.

Dead Echo 1 is a fierce, difficult, long map - where it's easier to forgive the problems on maps 4 and 5 (which have been fixed in v2). This one is sometimes hard, then sometimes really really easy. Still a good map, but no where near as balanced or fierce as the l4d1 version.

Needs work. With luck it will not get left like this.

Map design is decent
Good amount of maps

Last map of campaign, wall before Helicopter should be climbable by zombie or we shouldnt be allowed to stand on it, breezed through by standing there
Pace is pretty slow
Not enough Weapons
Delay on bridge falling caused some errors
Some texture on pallettes

Not a terrible map, but not really that breathtaking or interesting. Overall, only worth a try if you expelled all of the better possibilities.

- Great environment.
- Good stages design.
- Well placed panic events (except for the begging one).
- 5 well distributed maps.
- Great atmospheric events.

- Disappointing finale.
- Some issues with the nav, at least for bots.
- Bad begging (Not the intro).
- To much ammo piles and less weapons.

I know that this campaign is made for advance users, meaning enhancing the difficulty, but at the begging is too bitchy; cause you don't have main weapons at all, you have a pile of ammo right at the beginning, but only melee weapons to fight a shit load of zombies just at the first place, that's just a joke.

And even that the campaign is original in style and construction, cool environment and all that jazz. That finale just makes it, pretty disappointing, cause is easier fight over there, than actually get trough the 4 levels.

But after all, is a good piece of work.

Thanks

The rain effects were cool.
It's for L4D2.
The toxic river.
The exploding saferoom in map 2.

Not enough death charges.
I didn't really find any good 25's.
Infected seem to keep coming after the crescendo in the first map.
The room after the giant fan seemed really tight.

I could never figure out how to beat the finale in L4D1, but I figured it out. Overall, great campaign. Real imporvement over the first. But probably the best moment was going to the exploding saferoom, walk in, and I was like, "Where's the explosion?" Then it exploded and I freaked out. Man, best time ever. Hope you make another campaign soon.

Level design is really good. Lots of thought went into making a good 3d layout. There is a good amount of both flat and vertical traversing

As SG Heartless is so well known for, there are some REAL surprises in this campaign

Good supply of ammo and other goodies.

Some level detail is slightly lacking, but nothing terrible

1st map starts off with a rediculous endless hoard until you shut off the alarm. Fortunately that isn't very far.

One thing I noticed and that I really appreciate is the lighting. From the beginning where it is dark outside to the last map you really get the sense of time passing with the final map being early dawn....very well done.

Good textures and modeling, very good infact.

Unique features in the various maps make for some very interesting navigation.

NO TEXTURE ISSUES...but then SG Heartless wouldn't post crap unless it was thoroughly polished.

long campaign with lots of different enviroments!! gave a challange which i like!!

i'm not a critic, did get some lag issues,but not so bad it made it unplayable..

really enjoyed it and the 2 guys i played with really enjoyed it too!! awsome job !!!!

-No bugs
-Much effort put in
-High level of detail
-Horde count was manageable(Advanced)
-Creative ideas(saferoom explosion,toxic waste area)
-Some saferoom designs were very unique and great(last level)
-Many 'camp' areas in finale
-Finale had wide spaces for 'kite the tanks'

-Bill's corpse at the intro
-Felt that the levels were a little lengthy altogether, didn't feel like continuing at the finale(maybe I am tired)

In my opinion, I will enjoy it better if the campaign length was toned down. Otherwise, this campaign's well done!