Make up your minds: here's my issue with people trying to review a sequel to an almost flawless game.
When I finished inFamous, my reaction on what the sequel should be was thing, "All they have to do is, improve the graphics, get rid of pop in, change the location, give new powers, and develop the story is some sort of understandable way, and you'll have a sequel that is just as good, if not better than the original." When you have a new IP that is critically acclaimed, you really don't need to change the mechanics going throughout the series. The gaming industry is being flooded by games like CoD, which is now a yearly release, and they only change the story, literally everything else is the same, yet they all receive amazing reviews, and no one complains about it not being ambitious enough. People want change in sequels, but they also want the game to give them the same enjoyment that they got out of the first one. So make up your minds; do you want innovation, or familiarity? As an example, the Gamespot review said that inFamous 2 didn't change enough, but it also said that they didn't like how the game didn't include the sewer levels. Well, don't you think that if you had to do the same exact thing as in the first game, in the second, that you would have complained, calling it rehashed and overused? I don't think the new segments, where you have to power on and protect generators, are amazing, but I'm happier with the fact that they did something new, instead of re-doing the same thing.
I'm not going to get into everything I disagree or agree with, in the reviews I've read, but I'll say this; and it's been the same in many sequel reviews that I've read, for any game: if the first game is highly acclaimed, and widely considered to have few flaws, there is no need to overhaul the sequel. It's just not necessary. What inFamous 2 has done well, is in fixing the minor things, and in all honestly, most of those things are graphically, that pertain to immersion. The one thing in the first game that bugged me to no end, and really killed the immersion for me, was pop-in. I hated riding the train tracks and seeing random people and cars pop-in. That is gone in inFamous 2. Another thing that didn't work as well as it could, was the detection of blast shards. Well they fixed that too. Gamespot said that the detection of Cole's climbing and such wasn't improved upon. I really didn't have an issue in the first game, with that, but I can tell you that I've had no problem seamlessly running, climbing, gliding, and jumping through New Marais (which is an excellent city, filled with variety; a variety that Empire City was somewhat lacking).
I'm not going to tell you that inFamous 2 is the innovative game that we were all blown away by, like inFamous was. But did it have to be? I don't think so. I would have had a bigger issue with the game, if they tried to completely change every aspect, instead of making minor improvement. To each their own, I guess. But in an industry that craves innovation and ambition, I don't see what the issue with improving on a game that wowed us with it's ambition and innovation, fixing minor issues, adding some cool new things, giving us a great new city, and continuing a pretty good story, is.