Alice: Madness Returns/YMMV

Anticlimax Boss:
- The March Hare and the Dormouse, much like the first game, are built up to be early bosses as you search for Hatter's arms and legs, but the only thing of note they do is try to impede your progress in your quest. They both flee after you break their machinery and defeat all the enemies in their area. At the end of the chapter, they prepare to fight her inside a Humongous Mecha, but are ejected from it when the Mad Hatter throws a big ol' teapot at it.
- The Executioner chases you through the Queen of Hearts' castle and the now-rotting hedge maze, and is completely invincible... that is, until a cutscene kicks in where Alice finds and eats the cake that makes her grow much bigger in size. She simply stomps on the Executioner, who is now so scared he drops his scythe.
- To be honest, the only real Boss Fight in the game is the final one against the Dollmaker on the Infernal Train.
Awesome Art: The game's art direction is the most acclaimed aspect of the game, and for good reason. Every single asset looks lovingly hand-crafted, not to mention the impressive "moving papers" animated cutscenes.
Badass Decay: Literally. Last seen as a towering, shrieking 300-foot tall monstrosity spread across Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts is now trapped in her rotting kingdom, physically resembles Young Alice (Alice's superego according to Mcgee), and besides Caterpillar is among the few helpful people in Wonderland.
Breather Level:
- Cardsbridge, the first level of Chapter 4. No enemies, no disturbing imagery, just peaceful jumping puzzles as you wind your way towards a horrible rotting castle inhabited by your worst Wonderland enemy.
- All of Chapter 6, what little there is, is a breather after Chapter 5. No enemies, no platforms, no secrets; there's literally nothing at all except the final battle and a few cutscenes to close off the plot.
Catharsis Factor: Likely the most satisfying part of the game is the conclusion of the Chapter 3 Hopeless Boss Fight against the Executioner: this beast has been chasing Alice all over Queensland, Alice is unable to hurt him at all, and finally, she reaches the cake that lets her grow even bigger, enabling her to smoosh him. Alice has certainly never looked happier. And the fun just gets better from there as you direct Alice to trample the Red Queen's whole army and wreck the castle as the villain screams for mercy.
Complete Monster: Dr Bumby. He rapes a young girl and then burns down her house, killing her and her parents just because her little sister (Alice) happened to witness it, leaving Alice insane from the survivor's guilt caused by the fire, tries to "help" her by getting her to forget her memories so that he can pimp Alice as a prostitute. Not to mention all his other patients. Dr. Bumby refuses to confess to what he has done, saying that he was providing a service for the community and that Lizzie wanted him to have sex with him even though she clearly wasn't interested. His Wonderland counterpart The Dollmaker is naturally just as bad (as his name implies, he takes children and turns them into dolls, not unlike what his London counterpart does), to the extent even the Big Bad of the first game despises him.
Demonic Spiders: Depends on the difficulty being played on. Once the 3x damage multiplier gets applied on Alice, the various enemies that usually connect hard hits frequently (and dodging from Alice's attacks quite often) will start to look like these.
Ensemble Darkhorse: The Carpenter is wildly popular and considered the best character in the game. Even American Mcgee himself said that he's his favorite.
Faux Symbolism: Alice prominently wears a necklace of the Greek letter omega. At the bottom of the front of her dress are the alchemical symbols for copper (which is upside down for some reason) and tin. These and other alchemical symbols also show up in the environments. However, there does not appear to be any kind of meaning behind how they are used.
Funny Aneurysm Moment: The things the orphanage kids say to Alice during the frst London segment come off as innocent, if a little odd, first time round. Then you look back on them with the knowledge of what Dr Bumby is using them for. One notable example is this conversation between two little boys: "She [Alice] hates being touched" "Who likes it, then?". They're being used as prostitutes. You do the math.
Game Breaker: The fully-upgraded Teapot Cannon. Shatters enemy defences with one hit, is able to kill them with another.
Goddamned Bats: Quite a few enemies may qualify, but especially the Bolterflies and Ink Wasps if they make contact.
Good Bad Bugs: This, which will in about twenty minutes get you an 80G achievement you'd normally have to replay the entire game for.
Hell Is That Noise: That scream you hear when you miss a jump...
It Gets Better: The Foundry, which is only the second area you visit, is easily the dullest area of the game, and one of the longest. This led to many a bad review from people who didn't know it gets better after that.
Most Annoying Sound: "A good worker is a live worker! Paid to live and work! A bad worker, is a dead worker; and vice versa! Don't be a bad worker, bad workers are slaves! And dead! Payday for good workers has been suspended indefinitely! Payday for bad workers is CANCELED! A good worker is a live worker! Paid to live and work! A bad worker--"
- Don't forget his other speeches.
- Mini!Alice's hiccups.
Scrappy Mechanic: Pressure pads, specifically when Alice must hold one down with a clockwork bomb then rush somewhere else before the timer runs out. Not so bad when she just has to get to a lift or something. Very irritating when she has to shoot a clock that's so far away, most of the time has run out before she even gets there.
- To find the pig snouts, you need to have VERY good hearing (and that's not counting the invisible pig snouts the game likes to throw at you). If you have a hearing problem, then you're out of luck without a guide.
Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: Averted. The Radula rooms lock up after you complete the events. Not like they're particularly interesting or addictive anyway.
Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: Children forced into being sex workers. This is a massive problem, especially in third world countries, that doesn't get much attention.
- Don't let your own issues blind you to reality. Alice saw several red flags (if her scattered memory fragments of him are any indication) that Dr. Bumby didn't have her best interests at heart, but she allowed him to try and erase her memories because forgetting her past was easier than dealing with her pain. She was also so caught up in her own problems that she completely failed to see the abuse that was happening to the other orphans.
That One Boss: In the Hatter's lair, immediately after the obstacle course of smashy stompy things. At of course the game uses checkpoints instead of a real save/load system, and the last checkpoint is before, not after, the obstacle course of smashy stompy things, so the worst thing about this boss fight was not its sheer impossibility, but the tedium of doing the goddamn obstacle course all over again every time you died.
Uncanny Valley: Not just the Wonderlanders, but if you really find those prostitutes in London attractive, you either have an awful taste in women or a REALLY frustrated Libido.
What Do You Mean, It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: Not surprising, considering that the game is a mature parody of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. On its own though, it has flying pig snouts which requires to be shot with a pepper gun, making them disignate followed by a passageway or basket appearing. One moment in the game which can be really considered a "drug trip" is the beginning of Chapter 5, in which you are treated to disturbing hallucinating images and visions as you walk through an insane asylum.
The Woobie: This game makes Alice look a lot more like one than the previous game. Also several other characters, some from the first game, are (still)this.