This sequel is ultimately a very solid 3rd person action game, but where it makes vast strides in improvements in some areas over its visionary predecessor, it takes massive steps backward in others. The first thing you’ll notice when you pick up this game is its great graphics and silky smooth framerate as you begin butchering legions of stormtroopers while dual-wielding lightsabers. The controls, camera and all manner of Force mechanics have been refined and improved.
However, my main gripe of this game is an extremely contrived story that does very little with the characters it created from the first game. It was disheartening to never see any meaningful encounters or extended interactions between Starkiller and Juno, and there are a hundred different directions the team could’ve taken to expand the story and give them both more of an adventure together. It seems like the team put too many resources on creating genuine Star Wars-y environments, most of which you just plow through in short lengths of time anyway, even on hard difficulty.
What you are left with is a solid game mechanically, but it’s all left with no uplifting story or a meaningfully fleshed out campaign (in terms of length) to support it. Is it still worth it? If you played the first and love Star Wars/wailing around some lightsabers, then yes. I would not pay more than $10 for it though. Be prepared to be severely disappointed with the story.