Lets start with positive - I really like how they improved jet pack, because map is positively huge and you will have to do a lot of legwork to explore it sufficiently. It is also nice to see old but new map with memorable locations that got a little twist, like towns swittching to other factions, new settlements or overall biome changes. But after that freshness ends, you end up with unbalanced game with convoluted and twisted story. Without spoilers, the more you know about what is happening, the less it makes any sense, you start with clear goal, only to end up with another "let them come" ending. Original Elex was full of "impactful" choices, but they do not carry over, so when you meet character the past, you have no idea what your relatonship will be. Once again, joining a faction makes no real difference to the story. In the end you fix all problems for them and then rescue the world on your own, with only cool armor to show for it. Companions are thin, easy to please, and offer nothing more than good damage sponge in combats, if you manage to let AI to aggro on them (which is not that easy). And of course romance - is it even there? You will have cutscenes for flashbacks that makes no difference to current story, but there is nothing to show intimacy between Jax and current partner... I can add many more complaints, like pacing issues (new side quest do not unlock in relation to main quest, so you can actually take care of almost everything before going to main storyline and then end up with "wait untili further notice" when you have nothing to do, but skip in game time...), or artificial prolongement by adding "kill X" enemies quests few times in the row during endgame. Overall Elex 2 was overhyped and did not deliver grand story, I am glad that I did not bought it for full price on release.
Where to even start? I like stylistics. Venice as a city is really enticing, with monumental buildings, many levels to explore and overall ambience. But as a game, it fails on multiple fronts. Combat is simplistics, using active skills proves no overall advantage over simply slashing combo attacks. Hotbar is a mess, with 4 weapons and skills dedicated to each one separatetly, you can either consantly remap it to current weapon or abandon idea of ever using them. Boss fights are really slow paced and badly designed. I never felt pressured, never in danger - damage was always so low that I could just chug potions and hack away at a target without even bothering to dodge. With abundance of resources, building up backpack of healing items is really easy. Design of levels is terrible, there is so much empty space you end up traversing over and over again - worst offender would be order of the holy seal headquarters, only important NPC is at the very end of building, behind narrow corridor that is frequently blocked by order members just roaming around. As you have to do this journey at least 3-4 times (including only quest returns, not counting combat trainings) it gets pretty frustrating really fast. There are also small bugs, mostly connected to collisions, displaced dialogue lines and situations when you could not loot enemies because they were killed too close to interactable object, like signposts. Then we have deliberate design choices that I cannot comprehend. Sometimes after entering location you would face entrance, so if you carelessly run forward, you will go back to previous location. In one missin when you have to guide nps through arsenal, he would not use platform, we had to run down entire district. There is no easy way to go back to home village (at that point game already shown us, that it can just move us to a location if it wants to)... With so many other games to choose, I don't see reason anyone should pick this one.
