if you put aside the stories about horrible working conditions at naughty dog, and you put aside how the game's sole trans character has their arc defined by suffering transphobic violence, and you put aside the game beating you over the head with its themes of "both sides are valid people doing horrible things":

it's fine. my experience with it was largely the same as the first, i.e. not totally connecting with the story but enjoying some of the individual beats and characters, struggling through parts of the gameplay but thrilled by some of the setpieces, and still feeling some of the weight is lost by you having to crawl around like a worm looking for ammo after every dramatic scene (though admittedly slightly less so this time.) also the first half of the game is incredibly dull and the ending chapter is such a bizarre swerve in setting. just make all that a cutscene and cut it down to fifteen minutes.

i will give it a lot of credit for its accessibility options. i can snark about a lot of the game, but the accessibility work is frankly superb and should be the standard for AAA going forward. lord knows i got a lot of use out of the low-vision options.

the overall story is pretty whatever, and i think the first one has a more striking aesthetic, but the gameplay in this one is miles better and just a ton of fun.

what i really want to talk about though is the early chapter (and some smaller later ones) where it's basically an open world horror game, and it's fantastic. running around the neighborhood, stumbling upon little horror vignettes, trying to sneak past enemies i had no idea how to handle, the weird ice ghost memory one-hit kill lady showing up out of nowhere... please devs i'm begging you, open world horror! make more of these! they're so good!