More polished than its predecessor, but lacking the creeping terror of the original.
Silent Hill 2 featured new characters and had little to do plot-wise with the original. James Sunderland is the protagonist, a widower grieving over the loss of his wife Mary, dead for three years. When he receives a letter purporting to be from her, asking him to come to her in Silent Hill, whilst disbelieving, he makes the journey not knowing what to expect.
Like the original, the town seems deserted save for some bizarre monsters such as anthropomorphic mannequin-type enemies and later, "bubble-head" nurses, all shrieking and gurgling creepily as you fight or flee them. The only other signs of life are a handful of eerie characters that seem to have something psychologically wrong with them.
James eventually meets Maria, a doppelganger for his late wife, but who is sexier, more extroverted, and flirtatious. She accompanies James for parts of the game and reappears at other points where it seems impossible for her to be there. The dynamic between her and James lends itself to the already distorted and warped perceptions the game imparts to the player, creating a disorienting effect where you're never quite sure what to expect next.
Combat is more refined than the original: James is a better - or more reliable - aim than Harry Mason with guns, and the melee weapons are more accurate too. Plot-wise the game borrows themes of child abuse from its predecessor but is more explicit with them, and the supporting characters are suitably disturbed. The twist ending is also cleverly done, and multiple possible endings offer extra replay value.
The problem is whether you're going to want to play repeatedly. Silent Hill 2 is a good game and there are significant improvements over the original in a lot of ways: it's better-looking, the voice acting is much better, the characterisation is more believable and the Pyramid Head monster is totally iconic.
The reason the game suffers is because it just isn't as scary as its predecessor. While undeniably limited by the Playstation hardware, this worked in the game's favour, with almost total darkness keeping you constantly on edge afraid of what lurked just out of sight. In the sequel, gloomy corridors remain just that regardless of lighting, so there's no real sense of fear over what you can't see.
It's this pivotal factor that makes the game jumpy but not frightening, and the latter is Silent Hill's hallmark. By moving away from this, Konami made a worthy, but by no means superior addition to the Silent Hill series.