It's hard for me to compare this game to its prequel since my playthrough of that game feels so distant. However, I had a good time playing through this game. I think most of my issues stem from the new format. Gameplay largely takes place in a big play area instead of separated levels. I can't help but feel like I don't enjoy it as much since exploration can be really annoying. Between the swiftly respawning enemies and sketchy movement, running around can get really repetitive.

Moving around with Sly can be really finnicky around the blue sparkling stuff. You'll intend to climb something high up and suddenly lock on to a random spot on the ground floor. Other times you'll want to attach to something and the game just doesn't let you. I'm sure there are prerequisites to these things working as intended consistently but it was a pretty frequent issue for me. The camera is also an issue sometimes. It doesn't usually cause deaths, but it is a physical object that gets caught on geometry.

There's a lot of options for upgrades and abilities if you're getting a lot of money, but I didn't try many of them out. Frankly It doesn't feel all that necessary, especially since they get so expensive at a certain point.

I was never a huge Bentley fan, but this game made me a Bentley hater. He talks more than anyone else in the game and overexplains everything. Brother feels like the main character at times. His gameplay segments are generally the least fun.