For the most part, the game is a solid upgrade from the first. Building and crafting is extended upon with more variety and more grinding in a lot of cases. Obviously some players may find this irritating and time consuming but I don't feel like it takes away from the experience too much. After all, the fun of the first game was partly due to finding a spot to plant roots, defending it from whatever monster comes your way, and then expanding the area you're in or moving on and finding a new spot.
I have no problems with the graphics, the game is gorgeous and a definite improvement from the first; I have no complaints whatsoever there.
My big, main, GLARING problem with the game, is the story. Specifically, the end. Because my god, Endnight are showing that they do not know how to plot a suitable, well thought out or comprehensible ending to their games.

So the starting plot of the game has you arrive at the island hosting the titular forest in search of the CEO of PuffCorp, Edward Puffton, his wife Barbara Puffton, and daughter Virginia. The helicopter you are in crash-lands on an area of the item and you are briefly accosted by a man holding you at gunpoint before knocking you out and the cutscene ending, leading to the actual gameplay starting. One of the first things you can do upon starting is to assist a guy that was in the same helicopter as you. His nametag reads Kelvin and he becomes your assistant throughout the rest of the game, accepting commands ranging from building a fire to following you around with a boombox radio like it's the 80's again.

The problem starts, like in the first game, with too many plot threads that the game tries to clear up before the end, with extremely mixed results.
We get threads related to the island (What was Edward Puffton doing here? Why did he go missing?), the characters we meet (Who is the man who knocks us out? What is his goal? Has Virginia always had extra appendages?) and the various encounters we have on the island (Who are the cannibals this time? Who are the Sons of the Stars? How is Timmy from the first game here?).
As the story goes on more and more get added (What is the purpose of the cube? What is solafite? What is the story with the astronauts and the spaceship we find?) and a few DO get resolved, but the general lack of payoff and the unexpected introduction of new elements (Why are there demons in the game now? What happened in the 1700's? Why did the Sons of the Stars try to kill Virginia?) leads to the largest attempt at tying up loose ends since Star Trek Voyager's finale.
We get to the end of the game, where more and more threads are getting dropped out of nowhere (Why is the golden door behind a wall built by PuffCorp? Why is there magma? Are we supposed to be descending into hell? What has Jianyu been doing this whole time?) which leads to a bottleneck and then sudden release plot and story and "answers" of everything all at once (Why was the cube placed where it was? What is with the vision of an alien cityscape? How did the Sons of the Stars know there was a dimensional gateway here? Was Timmy's primary goal always to try and get healed using this technology? Where has Timmy's dad been this whole time, considering we saw him earlier in the story? Since when can solafite heal people?) that just feels extremely unsatisfying and to be honest poorly executed.
This is the exact same problem that occurred in The Forest. Endnight added all of these tasty little tidbits of information, to which most people's expectation would be that they get answered in due time. But they don't. And it's really quite disappointing, because it sours the ending of what was otherwise a good sequel.

If I could give a game a maybe on Steam, this game would 100% get one for the ending alone.