My experience with Doom as a franchise is limited to finishing Eternal and 100%ing it about a week before playing The Ancient Gods Part 2, so I might off my nut for my opinion, but I genuinely really enjoyed it.
My expectations were slightly lowered after Part 1, I found a lot to love in this DLC. Some of the same issues carry over, especially inconsistent level quality and length. What I believe is probably the worst part of the DLC is also, ironically the part that is probably the best and certainly my favourite, which is of course the Sentinel Hammer.
The hammer is insanely fun. The combos with equipment turn combat into a constant loop of dopamine infused resource generation, and it's so damn satisfying to use. I’d take it over the Crucible any day. But I can admit it's very over-tuned. It trivialises a lot of the game, especially since it’s so easy to charge via glory kills or weak points. Horde mode actually doubles the charge requirement to 4 points, which makes it funny that the hammer was nerfed there, since they clearly understood how strong it was in the DLC.
The biggest issue for balance is how the hammer extends stun windows, which trivialises enemies that rely on stun windows to kill like Marauders. Trivialising Marauders is fine on it's own, except for the part that the final boss functions exactly the same as a Marauder and is trivialised all of the same, the only differences being that he's literally the Doom Slayer in an evil ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ red Gundam with a few unique attacks and a decent chunk of health. After being built up as the big bad of the DLC, the fight ends up being underwhelming and very trivial. It’s a shame, because the final level itself is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ peak, it's basically an Endgame-style portal battle opening, with the Doom Slayer and Sentinel armies against all of Hell. It's so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cinematic, they did an incredible job with the atmosphere.
Overall, I did enjoy the DLC and had a blast 100%ing it, but the overall challenge isn't comparable to the base game and the final fight is just not all that interesting. Both parts of the DLC have the final boss revolving around the main new mechanic introduced. The difference between the two being that instead of revolving around a mechanic that is generally unfun and un-interactive, the weapon it revolves around is a little too potent and ends up trivialising the boss.
The Sentinel Hammer goated, but the DLC doesn't balance around it in a way that upholds difficulty, which sends off Eternal in a slightly underwhelming way, when it comes to the overall challenge. I can understand why so many people hate this DLC and why it holds and why the consensus is mostly negative. I just personally found a lot to like.
Despite the flaws I really did love both the DLC overall, I’d give The Ancient Gods Part 2 a solid 6.5–7/10, one point for each chance the final boss gets to actually hit you 💀
