I wanted to love this game. I loved the first one, and patiently waited for the EGS deal to die and for 1.0 to release. I was wary of the smaller roster, but kept my head in the sand until I played it.
I almost wish I hadn't.
Almost.

With that foreword, I give you...

The game is beautiful, and the soundtrack, while less memorable, is still good. The iconic 2D style was turned into 3D masterfully, animations and all. The story is solid, but confusingly presented; Only after looking it up was it considerably good.

DD2 focuses far more on doing hours-long runs of treks to The Mountain than a decent-sized dungeoncrawl, where preparations and planning are thrown out the window entirely. You must slog through, essentially, four DD1 dungeons before reaching the final bossfight of each Act; Do this 5 times, and you win. Many stats, such as PROT and ACC have been repurposed into 1-use 'tokens' that apply to characters, and... It was fine. Not my favorite.

Camping is gone, replaced with the 'Inns' after each region. Instead of preparing your camp skills and knowing what it is you can do, you now have to hope and pray that this Inn has what you want. Often, it does not, but the dialogue inside is cool at least.

I did not care for the navigational minigame with the carriage and found most Stagecoach items sorely lacking in usefulness. The pancake maker was my favorite. Didn't care for pets, either, but the Shrieker one is cute.

Your characters' deaths don't particularly matter, either. Keeping characters often requires an Act boss clear, and there is no combat retreating this time around, meaning it's hard to keep your squad... Oh, and no class dupes. No double HWM, no double Hellion, etc. If you need a Man-at-Arms for your next run but don't want to lose your kept, named one, tough tits. Hero upgrades are, also, per run and not per character.

The stress mechanic has been gutted, and can comfortably be ignored. Every negative affliction has been turned into 'Meltdown', which just lowers your health to ~10% and makes people dislike them... and that's it. You can do this as many times as you want in one combat, and there is no Heart Attacks. 'Resolute's do the opposite- Heals, makes people like them. The only unique affliction is Flagellant's TOXIC, which is a boon really, and can help you sweep the game with minimal hassle.
Yes, the iconic mechanic of DD1 is gutted and useless, I'm glad you noticed. Remember when I said they abandoned their niche?

There's also, paradoxically, a significant focus on per-battle affairs, as getting fully healed after each fight is real easy, despite healstalling being mostly gone (a good thing, I admit). Without caring for the Stress system and everyone getting nearly fully healed after every fight, each run turns into... a horrible slog. In DD1, there was no guarantee of being healed and stress afflictions hampered you significantly. Every fight, even against the same enemies, was different, and is how hundreds of hours were far less stale.

And on top of all this, each run can last you up to 3 hours apiece, which is absolute agony to lose at the Act boss. Even in DD1, if you lost a whole team, it was not preceded by a 2 hour slog beforehand... Unless you were trying to one-trip the Crimson Court. And, of course, each run is entirely distinct and disjointed from the one before and after it. Those do not matter, because there's no simple economy to keep up with, just how many Candles you bring back for upgrades that may or may not effect your current roster.

The interesting planning of having to do a dangerous Antiquarian money-run or having to skimp out on supplies after a few bad weeks from DD1 is gone. Entirely.

The Hamlet is gone, replaced with a different hub. Keeping money and relics is worthless in a run, because they'll be thrown out for a new currency- Candles. These are what upgrade heroes, unlock trinkets & items, let you keep heroes, let you acquire cosmetics, etc.

I was not impressed by many of the new DD2 trinkets. There is an extreme obsession with mixing & matching item sets, now with item types rather than 2 exactly paired items, a-la Crimson Court. I didn't find most of them worth a damn though- usually, simple +20% healing is better than some potential debuffs.

From DD1, we've lost Abomination, Arbalest, Antiquarian (Though, they're an enemy now), Crusader, Houndmaster, Musketeer, and Shieldbreaker.
And we gained... The Runaway. An excuse to show off the new fire DOT. And Flagellant is a unique blight-based hero now.
Utterly. Unacceptable.

You can't even equip Bounty Hunter at the Crossroads. You have to hire him at an Inn- where, of course, he may or may not be at. He's super good & versatile, of course, but... But why?
And why is Flagellant so different? It's not because you only had two characters who can Blight because Abomination & Antiquarian got axed, is it? It's not that I don't want him to be changed, he's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ GREAT in DD2, but... Why ONLY him?

It's totally the blight thing.

Oh my GOD this system is hair-pullingly impossible sometimes. All heroes have relationships with one another, gauging how much each of them likes eachother, and the result is entirely, bafflingly random. Heroes aren't assigned different likes or dislikes or flags, such as DD1's 'Religious' flag for camp skills. Instead, every time a choice comes up- Helping people, grabbing trinkets, whether to fight or flee, etc, it's randomly decided who will get along with who. If you don't catch some sour relations early enough, you're in for a Dwarf Fortress tantrum spiral as bitterness begets bitterness and nobody gets along.

After resting at an inn with negative enough relations, two characters will become 'Envious' or 'Hateful' with one another, and two skills (one skill each) will DEBUFF the other, sometimes to a HUGE detriment, for the rest of the region. Hope it didn't happen at the Mountain.
It's possible to fix these relations with items at an Inn with alcohol, until someone gets the quirk to stop drinking. Hope you unlocked enough Inn items to take care of it! (Which is why early runs will have hateful parties; no unlocked items to remedy it.)

You can get positive relations too, and 2 skills will buff each hero, but the transaction isn't equal. Between a MAA and a PD, for instance, the MAA using a Negative skill may give the PD a Taunt & Weakness token, meaning that they'll draw aggro and take a nasty hit.
Meanwhile, if they had a positive relationship, the MAA using that same skill would... Heal 1 stress. In a game where Stress doesn't matter.

It doesn't help that even if heroes were carried over from a previous run as best friend, they now are strangers and within 10 minutes can be at eachother's throats. Nothing is consistent. A Hellion can help stranded folks out, then a region later, want to rob them. Of all the bad ideas in DD2, THIS one should have STAYED on that whiteboard.

The Lair region bosses were re-used concepts or fairly bland. The Act bosses were unique and tough, but if every boss takes 3 hours to get to, I cannot recommend going in blind just to lose.

Darkest Dungeon 2 is an inferior game to its predecessor. It has taken the beloved niche it carved out and thrown it aside, wanting to become more... generic. It was alarming to find that the Nameless King from Dark Souls 3, a similar 'hardcore' RPG filtered less people than DD2's 2nd of 5 Act bosses. DkS1's Anor Londo, the halfway point, filters less people.

It's no wonder why.

Play Darkest Dungeon 1 instead.