I had fun with it, but I know that's just because I played it coop with a good friend. I can only imagine how much of a slog it would be going through this solo.

PROS
-Good times when playing co-op, cannot stress enough how much playing this with a friend helped salvage this mess.
-Weapon customization mechanic is a really fun addition. Spent a lot of time at the benches making some goofy guns.
-Ended up actually liking Carver's character by the end.
-Various different environments.

CONS
-Trying to get coop to work was a bit of an unnecessary mess as EA makes you use their shitty program despite the fact we bought the game on steam.
-Not a great opening and the rest of the story was paced kinda strangely and never really hooked me despite being the conclusion of a trilogy.
-Not a ton of memorable moments, me and duo struggled to think of parts that actually stood out to us.
-Co-op kinda makes it not scary anymore, also just not as shocking or grotesques as the previous games.
-New characters, besides Carver, were pretty forgettable.
-Only 1 ammo is such a godawful mechanic and idea, basically ruins any fun of resource managing and makes conserving ammo incredibly confusing and awful.
-No currency and shops anymore. The crafting item system is just not good, relying on rng to find the right materials to make heals or whatever. Shops were just perfect.
-We'd find a ton of rooms and areas that were literally 1/1 copies and had us questioning if we'd been there before.
-SAVE SYSTEMS SUCKS DICK there's NO manual save and the auto save is not polished and had our inventory constantly glitching and losing items and gun upgrades.
-End credit 'scene' is just so dumb lmaoo

I considered Dead Space a near perfect game so I was genuinely surprised when this subverted my expectations and improved on something I already held with such high opinions.

I kept notes on my game hub as I progressed, writing pros and cons. I tried very hard to look for cons and couldn't really find anything I disliked that was anything more serious than simple nitpicks. This game just clicked with me like nothing has for a very long time.

PROS
-Very intense opening
-Pacing is better, especially with the story
-Far more cinematic experience
-More variety and detail in the environments compared to 1
-Darker, not just tonally, literally darker- flashlights needed
-Improved physics
-Low gravity parts feel better and are just more fun now
-Lot's of really fucked up horrifying moments
-New suits, mods, and better upgrades

Lastly. Isaac. Him being a silent protagonist in the first fit well, he was more of an extension of the player. His silence let the player experience and react to the discovery of the USG Ishimura Incident on their own. Now in 2 Isaac gets to grow into his own character who's now dealing with the trauma and effects of the previous game. We get to learn who he is, and honestly he's got some charisma when he's not busy being traumatized by horrible mutated creatures.

Fuck I love Dead Space 2.