I've played through this twice now.
Each time was... eh?
The big, glaring "holy shit" is the combat. It's the worst. Entire hordes of enemies can be defeated by the simple mashing of light-attack, rendering magic and dodging practically useless (and blocking? No point whatsoever).
My last playthrough was on hard difficulty. I died thrice. During the Kayran fight, it begins by swinging a tentacle, and that one-shot me. Next attempt, I just dodged it. Second death occurred during a cutscene, so I'm not sure what happened. Third death was against the final boss, the one at the tower. That's me avoiding spoilers. As I had avoided placing my skill points to add additional challenge, one hit (from any enemy) would often take away more than 60% of my health. I gotta say, that extra challenge actually made the game more interesting.
Decisions, though often more blatant than in the first game, had a huge impact on the game, making it so two players might have very different expSHITMYCHARACTERLI