Gameplay was ok, but frankly LOS 1 was better, so relative to the first iteration, LOS2 was a disappointment.
I want to say something about franchises and studios. bear with me. (sorry for my poor english).
I don't understand why studios neglect their franchises so much when it comes to story/lore. You want to establish a world that makes sense so you can build upon that world many games right ? and not come of with a shitty ending that will make sequels impossible or unlikely.
People can say whatever they want about Resident Evil games, but the fact that Capcom was careful about the lore is something positive. Characters are recurrent , there is a rational explanation as to where zombies come from, which helps create a rich universe. By comparison , Silent Hill didn't even try to make sense, "anything went" and people couldn't care less about its lore when RE lore is well established, with 3d cartoons to tie in between episodes ... A franchise is a name, but with a coherent world it becomes a saga.
Same with Metal Gear Solid (a Kojima game more than a Konami game). People wanted to play episode 5 because the 6+ others were successful at creating a world that makes sense all things considered.
So I don't understand, in a era where each new franchise or "reboot" of an old franchise is a financial risk, why studios keep on trashing their franchises to the ground like that. If I was a studio and I were to produce a game, I'd be very careful about the stories I want to tell. I would try to do some world building, if the story is an important aspect of the game. Obviously in LOS 1 it was. So why write LOS2 and make it almost impossible to produce a LOS 3 within the same "continuity" given the stupid ending ?
World building, good stories and coherent lore means potentially more sells if a franchise is successful. People want to play the next game to figure out what happens to their favorite characters, they want to buy merchandising , books , goodies, toys representing their favorite characters because they are part of a saga ...
TV does it, the comic industry, the movie industry , the book industry all do it successfully because a franchise is something precious that can be milked as long as it has fans hooked to a world they first discover then like coming back to.
I find it baffling that game studios don't get that. LOS is an example of this, Mass Effect too, obviously Assassin's Creed as Ubisoft totally butchered Desmond's storyline, and for what? it doesn't even make sense why they would do that. Are good writers so expensive studios can't afford them ? or do studios think killing the main character is a good plot device because they want him to be like Jesus Christ or something ?
So again, I don't get why studios waste this potential with bad stories, bad endings like they want to get rid of the game as soon as it is done. They could have successfully started a long franchise in LOS 1 universe because the story (up until the ending) was quite good.