Definitely! The one off, zero to hero of Massive Darkness 2 is great in an era saturated in 100 hour campaign board games. It also has solid rules for 10ish hour campaigns in several boxes too.
I gave my KS all-in of Massive Darkness 2 a few spins this weekend as well. I know it won’t be the cup of tea of many here, but I really, really enjoyed it. It is definitely a dice chucking dungeon crawler. But what I really like about it is that it is essentially a paper and plastic video game. It is part Diablo, part rogue-like, and part character class mini game. I too love how the classes are hugely different from each other. They are not deep thinky or anything, but each experience is pretty unique such that playing the same scenario as a Wizard instead of a Barbarian is refreshingly different than just some ability change ups.
The randomness is great too. I throughly enjoy the modularity that seeds random elements so that you can trim or go nuts with content from MD2, MD1, Zombicide Black Plague, and Zombicide Green Horde (the last 3 if you have the conversion packs). The way they adjusted special abilities of the enemies also gives them a lot more flavor than before. Fighting Imps that blow themselves up on heroes (totally a video game thing) is notably different than Nymphs that charm the heroes into beating themselves up. The same is true for the roaming monsters. The fire spewing Cerebus who’s fire never goes out is very different from the fallen angel Andra jumping off the game board to land on heroes in later turns (again, totally a video game move).
It’s all just…fun. I rate it very highly as a light, solo playable dungeon crawl as it can be played truly solo (one hero).
I’m not sure what you mean by double activation. The AI is very Zombicide in that Mobs (leader plus minions) go for the nearest hero. They all move/attack twice like a Zombicide runner. The roaming monsters only activate once, but that single activation tends to be two actions blended if they satisfy a special line in the AI, or 2 standard actions if their lines don’t apply. Bosses activate constantly (after every hero instead of the enemy phase).
My biggest issue so far is the game seems rather varied in difficulty, but that can be a plus in the toolbox sense. The first few scenarios and most of the critters in the core box seem easier than other scenarios or critters. I like my co-op or solo hard so I’ve already bumped things up. I give every model a black die (thus adding 1 via leader or roaming monsters instead of only minions) to make them hurt more and so characteristic specials go off more often. I might give the Roaming Monsters two passes at the AI like Descent, but I’m not sure. I’m also tinkering with the idea of giving enemies more shields each tier so that attack based special (claws) get their moment too. Even rules as written, I find it solid though.
A lot of it is not KS exclusive, but I do expect it to be out of print (and thus crazy expensive) fairly fast. Any character class box is a good idea to pick up ASAP. I also expect there could be some deals to be found on bit MD1 being sold off. If someone could snag a full MD1 KS and the upgrade card pack (or just the pack and proxy stuff) it would add a ton of content and maybe on the cheap as MD1 (without the upgrade card pack) is inferior in every way. That said the core box content is way more than they usually put in the core.
I can’t stop thinking about MD2 today. I find the randomness and character building via level choices and gear (very rogue-like) just so engaging. I’m totally going to prep more KS content over the week then play the heck outta it next weekend.