Good step foward, but with somethings left forgotten along the way.
First, graphics: Okay, gorgeous visuals. Technically. Artistically they've made an excellent job in terms of architecture, but not so very well in atmosphere. The game's just way too colorful despite of its grim and dark and amoral tone. An example that got me a bit more than others: the mist with dead warriors on chapter 2: everything's set up right except for one single detail: the goddamn sky. It's green. A blissfull tone of green, that breaks up with the otherwise gruesome and dreadful tone of the battlefield. Until now, I couldn't find a solid reason behind the choice of such anticlimatic tone to such an important part of the scenery. Another one comes with the tones of the La Valette castle. Compare it with the prologue of the first game: an ruined fortress dimmed with grey tones and shady corridors and interiors, swapped by such an luminous and flashy scenery. Such cases, along with many others, detract from the game's atmosphere and contrasts with the narrative's tone. If it at least contributed in making more realistic scenarios, that would be understandable, but generally, that's not the case...it just seems like the saturation is up too high.
Second, mechanics: Ok, there's not much to complain here. The combat system of The Witcher 2 is excellent, for an RPG. Well-developed paths to increase your abilitys are arguably better than the first game's overwhelming atributes and ramifications, even if shallower than before. They help a lot to accelerate the passing of fights and make for an satisfying moment everytime you have to cross blades with someone. The signs are better developed than before, and make for a tactical and strategic combat, without game-breakers like the Igni on the first title. Now, signs simply help you win your battles, instead of doing that on their own. The animation of Geralt dealing his blows also help to state why he's that good. They reflect his status as an genetic enhanced monster hunter, especially when you compare it to other enemies movesets. The only downside of the overall mechanic change was the alchemy. Before, you had to know what ingredients to use in each concoction, where you would obtain them and you would also need to administrate them for consequent use. Now, you just enter the menu, select the potion and how many of them you want to create, and then it's done. Just like that. This change made alchemy completely devoid of depth, and something just really worth exploring if you choose to develop your character on that way. Otherwise, the potions themselves will have penalities outwheighting all their potential benefits, and will force you to eventually stick with the more basic and less effective ones.
Third, world and exploration: This section I felt that was really dummied in relation to the first Witcher. Now you have less chapters, less areas to explore, less quests and misteries to unfold. Geralt, being primarily a monster hunter, showed to live up to his profession on the first game, always picking contracts or entering quests that involved much of the monster fighting. Now, not so much. Geralt spents more than 70% of the game battling another humans instead of sticking to his profession, and the monster variety was pretty much cut by half. Before, you had to gather information about the various beasts you were to face. Now, there's about 5 contracts avaliable during each playthrough, and while they're more intrincate than simply killing X monsters and delivering X items to the contratant, they still don't feel like the moments on the original Witcher where I set up in the wilderness at night and hunted down creatures until dawn, with general culminations into more powerful versions of monsters I had faced before (wich granted me trophys and led to powerful otherwise-inobtainable itens). Now, it's simply all about money (what's not at all a problem since what witchers do, they do for money, but you have to enjoy your profession to some degree to feel satisfaction in executing it).
Fourth, characters, interaction and character development: Well, Geralt's as good as ever. Rather stoic and eventually snarky, but always patient and professional about his business. Animation (especially the facial ones) during dialogue and interaction with other characters are the most detracting things from the experience. Some of the body expressions are shamelessly overused, and the writing and voice acting are mostly average (the former has considerable above-average moments, while the latter has some jarring cases, such as Triss), never quite making up to the storytelling potential in the game. Other characters could've been more fleshed out, also. Most coadjuvants still dwell in the zone of bidimensionality (except for the more plot-essencial ones, who really happen to be well-developed along the game). Dandelion, Zoltan, Triss Merigold and the other who are 'rookies' in the videogame series, such as Ves and Saskia, could've been more utilized and fleshed out during the narrative, that sometimes is so straightfoward that don't give enough time for such characters to be effectivelly present (of course, the decisions you make along the game influentiate on this, but even so, some characters ought to shine more, especially because they HAVE potential to do so).
The great tryumph in The Witcher 2 in terms of characters is the antagonists. The kingslayer is one of the most magnificent bastards to praise the gaming industry in this year, and is by far the best character in the game, excluding the protagonist, though opinions may be deliberate on the matter. Other ones, such as Dethmold and Philippa, also make up for interesting, ambiguous and mysterious characters, and such, the joy of confronting them only adds up to the experience.
Fifth, storytelling: In this department, they've really made an good job, but I'm afraid it wasn't as good as the job in The Witcher, again. The first game had an absolutely memorable plot twist and the revelations of the "Big Bad's" origins still strike me as one of the best narrative resources ever used in video games to the advancement of the plot. In this one, we have to rely on the kingslayer to provide such moments, but even then they aren't that great at the end of the day...of course, Iorveth and Roche all have their memorable moments, but nothing that scaled so high as the previous game's story archs. The conclusion, also, is abrupt and way too cliffhanging. It would be good to have a better sense of completion at the end of the game than what we got. Now, I have to rely on the third installment to see if the final choices will really mean something in the future. That's...agravating, at least. When you finish the story, you have some insight look of the consequences, but most of them are about polictics and the fate of certain coutries/places, and, as Dandelion himself declares at some point, these interest the witcher (and to this extent, the player himself) as much as last year's snow. So, I hope they fix this in the future.
Sixth, overall: The Witcher 2 continues with its tone of amorality and ambiguously led characters and story, and that's the greatest triumph of the game. But somethings surely could've been more explored, for the sake of making a more complex game, with more misterys to unfold and more varied outcomes in the conflicts presented to the player (such as the first game's - invoked one more time - investigation about the whereabouts of salamandra. I still give it a 9, because that's exactly the kind of game I enjoy, despite all its flaws (and, of course, some of the aspects improved on this game really put the anterior's ones to shame, especially in the technical aspect).
Worth playing, and even worthier to wait for a sequel...as ashamed I am to express such feeling.
But all right, mistake redeemed.
(NOTE: okay, I might've bashed this game way too much to end up giving it a 9, but that's because I totally support The Witcher series and CDProjektRed's - rather sucessful - attempts at gamemaking. I'm pointing more flaws than qualities because that's what I want to see fixed, and I do believe that with the correction of those, there might be a The Witcher game - probably 'Wild Hunt', if the studio manages to learn from their mistakes accordingly - that ends up in my personal list of all-time favorites)