Crysis 2 - Should I play the original first?

So I've got myself a copy of Crysis 2 winging its way to me. I have never played either Crysis game, but I know the first is available on GoD only.

My question is for those who have played both games: will playing the second one first ruin anything?

Should I shelve it and consider getting the first game first? How much does the story follow on? And how much does the second game reference the first?

Playing the second game first wont ruin anything per se, but it may leave you a little confused as to generally what's going on in the first place. The first game I feel is definitely the better of the two, it's far less linear, and is a fairly easy completion to boot, but that's not to say there is anything wrong with the sequel, as it is also a fine game. In terms of story, don't worry too much about it, as there is a fair chunk that we'll never see because they are never going to port Crysis Warhead to the Xbox, which the second game falls back on heavily at times.

I only played the first half of Crysis a few years ago, and I still really enjoyed playing Crysis 2 and didn't really find myself getting confused at the story at all.

If you pre order Crysis 3 from the Crysis 3 website or from Game (little more expensive) you get a free copy of Crysis to download. To answer your question, you shouldn't get confuse by playing Crysis 2 first cause its a different character who wear the suit. I played Crysis 2 before playing Crysis and didn't get confuse. Both game is fantastic to play but like TheTCD said Crysis is better than Crysis 2 because its more open world, where Crysis 2 more linear and more story driven I think.

OK, thanks for the replies. Sounds like I can just get on with it and play it whenever I want.

I did hear that the second wasn't supposed to be as good. Not really looked into the game much other than that though, pretty much all I know is that it's a FPS.

I played Crisis 2 without having played Crisis. Understood what was going on, still thought the game was very poor though.

I've never played Crysis and had no problems understanding the story in Crysis 2, great game too

It's not the story that you won't understand, it's more "who's this Prophet guy?" or "What are the Ceph and why am I fighting them?", which overall aren't terribly important to enjoy the game. If you like to know everything though, it would be better to play them in order.

Yeh i`ve played crysis 2 and not the first one and enjoyed it, in fact i`ve still got it.

I never played the first game but crysis 2 was a great game.