Red Faction was a game with some interesting ideas and fun gameplay that ended up mediocre thanks to a lack of focus and bad writing. Red Faction 2 doubles down on that in the worst possible way - more destructible environments and more guns, sure, but with even more lazy, uninspired world building and terrible writing in general. Some of these characters, man. Calling them cartoonish would be unfair to cartoons.
Could've been a great game if they focused on improving RF's biggest weaknesses, but instead it was a huge missed opportunity.