Dance Central 2 is the sequel to Dance Central and the second game in Harmonix' dancing game series for the Kinect peripheral.

Basic gameplay is unchanged compared to the predecessor: players must perform dance moves in rhythm with the music and the displayed on-screen dancers, for which body movements are tracked by the Kinect sensor. Game modes include single-song performances (for one or two players in co-op), head-to-head dance battles, the "break it down" training mode, and a new story mode called "Crew Challenge". Unlike in the first game, two-player modes now feature both players dancing simultaneously. In head-to-head mode, Free-4-All sections were added: these award points to the player who can perform an indicated move successfully before the other. The Crew Challenge mode is based on the previous game's challenge mode, in which song sets must be tackled in order for a challenge song to be unlocked, whose completion unlocks the next song set. This is now accompanied by a story, casting the player as an up-and-coming street dancer looking to impress the local dance crews. The practice mode has been enhanced in that it can be used to practice single moves instead of the whole song and also allows slowing down or speeding up of certain sections. A fitness mode can be toggled to display calories burned, and there are also fitness-specific playlists.

The game features 44 songs on-disc. It allows the import of all 32 on-disc songs from the predecessor for a fee and also supports all 32 DLC tracks released for the first game. A further 32 (non-backwards compatible) DLC songs were released in the year after the game's release.