The first Warhammer Space Marine was a game I really enjoyed, I had more fun with it than I thought I was going to, I finished it twice over the years too. I don't know much about Warhammer and still to this day don't, but that title was a decent gateway to trying out random Warhammer games. I still wish they somehow made a mainstream adaptation of the franchise so I can understand what on earth goes on in the story of these of these games but that is a topic for a different time. The first Space Marine and ended on a pretty annoying cliffhanger like many games and I thought it was never going to get followed up on but like Alan Wake 2, Space Marine would be another game that would get a sequel over a decade later but unlike Alan Wake 2, I actually enjoyed Space Marine 2 where Alan Wake 2 just bored the crap out of me.
Anyways, with that out of the way, much of what made the first Space Marine really interesting is that despite borrowing elements from games like Gears of War and Halo, with Gears being the controls and weapon limit, and Halo being the shield and dedicated grenade throw button, it also have had it's own innovations like how it predates Doom 2016 where you can enemies to get back health, sure games like the older God of Wars also did this but Space Marine did it in the context of a third person shooter especially in a time period where so many games that had third person over the shoulder shooting would have you hide behind cover.Much of that is retained in SM2, with some changes some being for the better others being for a downgrade from the first.
The positive changes is that now you have 3 armor bars and a health bar, enemy kills bring back armor while stims and the "valor mode" of sorts bring back health. The best part about all this is that enemies will not interrupt you when doing a melee takedown which is a very welcome change.
The jump pack controls much better now and it does just as well as a good job in this game of giving you added verticality in level from time to time.
Weapon feedback and damage animations are much more satisfying this time around since the game runs on more powerful hardware and more powerful engine. This also shows in other ways like how there are much more enemies on screen than there ever were in SM1, the whole thing feels like a cross between something you'd find in Serious Sam and World War Z. The way the Tyranoids come in droves and how so many of them are climbing and on top of each other can look very similar to the latter where with it's zombie hordes and I can appreciate it more here since SM2 can actually be played on normal mode without needing human players.
Which leads me to my next positive, the AI controlled allies are surprisingly handle themselves decently enough in combat on normal difficulty, milage may vary, but they had a lot of HP meaning I rarely needed to revive them and your 2nd partner does a good job at doing it for me. They never got me a game over due to them being inept unlike say the first 2 Gears of War games.
Changes I'm lukewarm on is the parry system, I don't really care for the most part since the window is forgiving but there are times where it feels like I'm going gear up for a parry just for an enemy to die before the attack happens.
I also dislike how the armor regen sound and the enemy attack audio cue sound them same which can create some confusion.
As a whole SM2 mostly does a very good job at keeping what I liked about SM1 but there is one major thing about it that I dislike that I think the first game does better.
That is the weapon limit, when I played the prologue of SM2, I noticed something was off and that is because you can't carry 4 weapons like in SM1, Titus can only carry 1 rifle and 1 pistol. This really annoys me because Titus is a big bulking Space Marine, and he can't carry around 4 guns, and this discourages weapon experimentation since I want to try out different weapons but instead the game just makes me use one and it has ammo boxes littered around everywhere making use that one gun even more.
On top of the game having so many interchangeable hitscan guns, so the Halo fan in me just stuck to using the Instigator Bolt Carbine since it reminds me of that series' Battle Rifle. This is a shame since SM2 does so many things well and I never got to experience the potential guns I could've liked.
That and there are some annoying sections like 2 wave defenses, which I found tolerable on normal but could've infuriated on higher difficulties without human players helping me since I got to shoot down flying enemies destroying something while enemies from the ground attacked me.
There is also some obnoxious left stick waggling to break free of certain enemy grabs which the first game didn't have and this luckily didn't happen often but it was infuriating during the litcher boss.
The story I found impossible to follow since I know nothing about 40K lore. It also pulls a Kingdom Hearts 2 in that expects you knowing a lot that happened in between games and lots of things happened off screen like Titus being in the Deathwatch. I started to zone out of the story when the cutscene after the prologue made at least 4-5 refrences to Warhammer lore I did not get. From then on, I was in it for the gameplay solely even if I did like some of the throwbacks to SM1.
Overall, had a good time. It was a decade long sequel in the making that I actually enjoyed and that's all I really wanted.
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