I'm curious, how are they like Hulk Ps2?

Hulk for Ps2 has terrible stealth section. Basically they are stupid, but you must do EXACTLY what the games want, or you'll fail.
The same thing happens in LOS2, and those sections are really really bad.

Its clear you haven't played LoS 2 from your remarks so far mate.

Mirror OF Fate HD: Pre-purchased, downloaded, played... This game is fantastic! ^_^
( Says the guy who has played almost every Castlevania since the NES era. )

See? Told ya! ;)
I don't really understand why everyone seems to enjoy to smash its reputation without mercy. Maybe we like it because we remeber the older ones, as this is more similar to them than to the metroidvanias, imo.
Personally, I thought it balanced very well exploration, combat, platforming and even narrative: the game never asks you to navigate the same areas for hours just to access a new one or to find a small but necessary object, but there's plenty to plunder if you know where to look and take your time. The level design is varied both artistically and technically speaking, and putting to proof the caracter's acrobatics in the giant gothic castle is a true pleasure. The combat is challenging enough and never emphasizes the level too much, giving you new combos instead of raw power - this is the point I appreciated more, since it gave back imporance to player skill. It's also true that I always found excessive backtacking an annoying waste of time (see "inverted castle") and "RPG elements" an unbalanced mess more often than not (with notable exceptions, as Order of Ecclesia), so I really cannot be objective. If you like, once you finished it -if you haven't already- tell me if you think the same! Until now, I thought the only ones who liked Mirror of Fate were me and two of my friends!

Yeah, I've only played it until the first stealth section with the two guards from a friend (PS3 version).

Well in all fairness you should try to progress a bit further, the stealth sections are quite short (~5 mins), theres only about 5 and there is one that you need to use Mist Form and that's it, the rest is the same as LoS 1, so if you enjoyed that, you should enjoy LoS 2 hopefully :)

I enjoyed LOS a lot, I'll give LOS2 a try when it'll be 75% off, then :)

Yeah I played up to the last level (20+ hours) but had to trade it in for FFX/X2 HD, so I'll rebuy it in a sale down the road. On saying that, I wouldn't have traded it if I wasn't so broke :)

I feel your pain,man, I'm on the same boat.
The last game I bough was Ground Zeroes, the next probably Batman Arkham Knight.
:(

How much is GZ there mate, its 30€ here but I heard that Konami dropped it by $10 in the US so I was waiting to see if it would drop here.

Well, here is 41 (before was 51), but I'm having a lot of fun with it. I played it for ten hours or so, and there are tons of things you can discover. I miss two trophies for now, but for me it's worth its price. But yes, if you are not a fan, this is only a 40€ demo, after all.

Wow that's pretty expensive! I bought a Gameboy Castlevania game in Italy years ago but the price was in lira and it did seem expensive at the time.

May pick up GZ at the weekend then as its not going to get cheaper I expect :(