While not all bad, this sequel is a big departure from the first game and its developed by an entirely different team and it shows. Writing and voice acting are noticeably worse and while they do care about continuity, the original case gets a half-assed resolution and the story focuses on a different, unrelated case.

Gameplay is slightly different and there are some really annoying carry limit mechanics and a lot of backtracking, plus some annoying timed puzzles. It discards the beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds of the first one for real time 3d environments, but both movement and camera feel worse.
Also most of the game happens in a single location, that isn't necessarily a bad thing, but specifically in this game it feels disappointing, there are small areas in the first game that feel more original/better designed than the whole place, plus the backtracking is so bad here that you will hate the areas.

On the good side, searching for fingerprints, examining blood and all these FBI kit related mechanics are kinda fun and it feels rewarding unlocking your way through the killer's mansion.

Hey, you know how Still Life 1 ended on a whodunnit cliffhanger? Well this game looks at that and says "we don't care, it's solved and the characters know but you don't get to know". Then it goes on to just do whatever the hell it wants with a lot of pretty mediocre writing. The game was also very very broken for me. Several crashes, glitches causing softlocks, clunky controls, and a lack of saves made it way too frustrating to play. I really liked the first game but this was a massive disappointment.