Heavy Machine Gun

The Heavy Machine Gun is a mounted weapon featured in Left 4 Dead 2. It is new in the sense that it replaces the Minigun from Left 4 Dead. It fires extremely powerful bullets accurately and operates with a slower rate of fire relative to the Minigun. Ammunition is unlimited. Unlike the Minigun, there is no wind-up time and it fires the instant the trigger is operated.

The Heavy Machine Gun can fire continuously for 15 seconds before it overheats, taking a long time - a minute to be exact - to cool down. It should thus be operated only in short bursts.

The only sign of overheating is the barrel glowing orange to yellow hot, indicating that it's about to overheat and any further usage will render it useless for a full minute.

Locations

 * The Plantation ― Located at the center of the top floor overlooking the garden at the rear of the plantation house.
 * The Bridge ― Just before the drop-off to the helipad, the Heavy Machine Gun is located on a truck directly opposite the drop down.
 * The Port ― Used by Louis on the bridge during the finale. It can only be used by players when glitching or modding.
 * Port Finale ― Located on the bridge during the finale. It is usable in both Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2.

Tactics

 * Firing short bursts (rather than holding the trigger down) gives a steady rate of fire and will delay, if not prevent, overheating. Short bursts on demand are possible because there is no wind-up time like the Minigun found in Left 4 Dead.
 * The Heavy Machine Gun, like the Minigun, uses the crosshair of whatever weapon (melee, guns or items) the operator is currently holding. In gameplay, this seamless transition makes aiming the Heavy Machine Gun easy and instinctive, but has no effect on the weapon's accuracy. The weapon's crosshair expands and contracts infinitely and automatically thus coping perfectly with targets at all ranges. This effect can be used to change the crosshair of the Heavy Machine Gun to best suit the player's preference or play style, helping players fire more accurately without improving the accuracy of the gun itself.
 * AI Tanks are programmed to attack the player operating the Heavy Machine Gun. This feature can be used to the Survivors' advantage in two ways: Firstly, AI Tanks can be drawn into a "killing zone" whereby they are overwhelmed by concentrated interlocking fire from the gun and other teammates. Secondly, AI Tanks can be drawn away from threatened teammates by mounting the Heavy Machine Gun.
 * The Heavy Machine Gun is in a favorable position in the finale of The Sacrifice. It is placed on the bridge, allowing the gunner to cover the entire intersection plus the generator area, possibly allowing the sacrificing Survivor to live long enough to restart the generator. The gun's location is also out of reach for most Infected. Furthermore, AI Tanks will ignore the sacrificing survivor and bypass The Tanks without fighting it at all.
 * In The Port, the Heavy Machine Gun manned by Louis is very helpful when trying to achieve KITE LIKE A MAN.
 * In The Plantation, the gun is on a balcony overlooking a hedged garden. However, very few (if any) Common Infected attack from that direction and from angles covered by the gun. Players choosing to defend from this position can try to improve their chances by throwing bile bombs down into the area covered by the gun and hope that the Tanks will spawn in the same area.
 * Though, in the Survival Guide trailer, Rochelle fires it from the bottom floor, this is impossible in-game unless mods or cheats are used to spawn a custom stationary weapon (or that the Survival Guide re-uses parts of early development such as the explosions at the Rollercoaster in Dark Carnival).
 * In The Bridge, the gun appears once the Survivors have accessed the bridge and the end-of-finale phase has begun, the only other instance in which it may prove useful is during a Survival game.