I actually think the first game is superior to Riptide, it just has some bad pacing at the start. But the last 3/4 of the first game is better than Riptide IMO.

I enjoyed both, but it seems like one of those love it or hate it series. Maybe I enjoy it cause I always play co-op and never alone.

I thought the first was great but I heard they VAC banned people for changing FOV in files (it is really, really low) and Riptide looks more like DLC so I skipped it

There's a Guild Wars 2 free trial? Thanks for the heads up. Going to check that out.

The only way you'd get VAC banned doing that is if you did it in a really stupid way, changing the FOV doesn't involve changing any core files in the game folder. You can supersede all the config files in the games save folder in "my documents".

So I tried again, this time ending up turning Digital combat on because I was tired of dying in Analog mode. It's now almost too easy. :/

I haven't tried Riptide yet, but was planning on giving it a whirl this weekend. In the original one which I played through multiple times, I never got the hang of analog control, the swing mechanism just doesn't feel quite right. There was a player mod which gave good reviews, styled as 'analog combat' for the keyboard; but, not sure how it compares in terms of locking on and freeing the mouselook for slashes instead or if it uses some other mechanic. Always wanted to give it a try but moved on to other games since then.

From what I understand though Riptide is basically just an expansion of the first game, same mechanics (with some minor additions), same graphics, same characters. Single player in the first was just coop mode in single player, since the game was designed with drop in/drop out coop, so playing a coop game and making it private without inviting anyone is the same as playing single player. I figure it still works that way in Riptide.

Digital control can be very easy though and was my preferred way to play the first one, even though I had a controller and was mostly doing melee. Playing through game+ mode or upping the difficulty makes it much harder though imo, so I figure there must be some mechanic to do that in Riptide.