Where episode 1 was weird and just like an extra footnote to HL2, not really doing much interesting gameplay-wise, barely leaving City 17 at all, episode 2 really pushes the plot forward and does it much better than episode 1. The gameplay and level design is much cooler in this one with the forest environments, vortigaunt partner, and extended usage of the car (which I loved playing around with). Hunting grubs was pretty fun in the mines (though I missed around 20), but the intense focus on antlions throughout like 60% of the game was a bit strange. One thing that annoyed me was the strider defense segment near the end- I ended up working it out fine, but it was quite annoying at first especially with the horde of hunters that would just shoot the bomb out of your hands. In all, super good game and is furthermore retroactively even more interesting due to the ending of Half Life Alyx.