Being based heavily on the movies, these games are not much like the previous ones, just as the movies weren't much like their predecessors. First off, no more school, no more classes, no more challenges. The whole thing feels much more like a third-person shooter than an adventure game, as you spend the whole time casting spells at enemy wizards and ducking and dodging. There is very little exploration, and that only to find special glowy symbols that unlock extras in the menu. It's pretty much Point A to Point B, shoot those guys, protect these guys, sneak around them, and shoot Bellatrix in the face. There is a great deal of stealth involved in the first game, but most of the time, it's too difficult to bother with.

On the plus side, the graphics are very pretty and realistic, if a bit too bright in spots in the first game. They've definitely got the hang of animating outdoor sunlight. The characters move very realistically, and the set pieces are impressive. Unfortunately, they were so impressive that the designers insist on you spending way more time around them than necessary in the first game. The plot there is stretched to the point of breaking by the insertion of unnecessary and pace-demolishing but required sidequests that take way too much time and are way too difficult compared to the rest of the chapters. Fortunately, they fix that problem in the second game by not including any sidequests at all. This makes that game ridiculously short, but I'm okay with that since it meant sticking closer to the plot. Since there's no reason to do any exploring, I didn't see any reason to pad the game's time length by adding such annoying levels.

For the most part, the first game is like playing through the first movie if they showed more aimless wandering and pointless battles than they already did, and the second game is like playing through the second movie, period. In the first game, you often started a level in the middle of nowhere for no reason other than to force you to fight random baddies for two hours before reaching twenty seconds of cutscene. In the second game, you were mostly right where you needed to be, with very little wandering about.

The targeting system and cover system were considerably improved in the second game too, which was great for someone like me who doesn't play a lot of shooters. And although the set pieces were scaled down quite a bit and a lot darker than in the first game, it felt more accurate, since it evoked a more gloomy wasteland feeling. The first game was a bit too bright, and although there weren't ordinary people wandering about the landscape, it still didn't feel quite desolate enough, more like a pleasant walk through nature occasionally interrupted by rude wizards and out-of-place skeletons. The second game felt more hopeless and more urgent.

My favorite level from either of the games also came from the second one. When Harry has decided to give himself up to Voldemort and allow himself to be killed, you have to play him as he walks through the forest. And you cannot run, only walk slowly and certainly to your doom, with a background of sad music. You meet the ghosts of loved ones along the way and listen to Harry's mournful conversations with them. It's quite moving, made more so because you have to play through it yourself. This makes it both the best and worst level in almost any HP game to date IMO.

You also get a bit more variety character-wise in the second game. In the first, you can only switch between Harry, Ron, and Hermione. In the second, you play a level as Neville, one as Professor McGonagall, one as Mrs. Weasley, one as Ginny, and so on. It's quite a bit more fun.

That's not to say the second game is perfect. It did screw up the ending. The point of the epilogue in both the movie and the book was to show how Harry came to accept Snape's role in his life, forgive him for past wrongs, and come to care about and admire him, albeit too late. This is done by pointing out the name he gives to one of his sons: Albus Severus. The game skips this reveal entirely and just gives us a pointless train scene with barely any dialogue and no information whatsoever. A very poor note to end the series on.

For completionists, HP fanatics, and gamers who enjoy shooters, these games are recommended. But if you can't imagine a HP game outside of Hogwarts, they're not for you, unless you simply must see the ending or that moving forest scene up there. But it's not really the games' fault. After all, it's the end of an era, and that's going to suck no matter what, and the book pretty much determined how that was going to go.