In The Groove 2 has given me a reason to be excited about going to the arcade again..

Yes, I'm that happy with it. I was able to get in about two hours non-stop yesterday and another hour today and I've just been loving it.

Everything has meshed together so well with this version, with the great new music, and excellent step charts. I've probably played a little over half of the new songs on Hard and a handfull on Expert, and everything has been great. It's gotten me back to the point to where I am totally excited about going back to the arcade to get more gaming in. That hasn't happened to me in quite a while.

It looks like many of the bugs I was experiencing before have been ironed out. There's no more crashing from using memory cards, and I only saw one instance of a little bit of slowdown today. So, either I hadn't been playing on a final build these past couple of weeks, or they figured out whatever hardware problems were causing those issues. Either way, it works great now. The end screen that shows how many calories you've burned is a really nifty touch, too.

Much respect to the ITG2 team for putting out an excellent product. It's turned me from being ho-hum about the game into a gushing fanboy, judging by what this post must look like. But, damn, it's just that fun.