I got overloaded by the puzzles in the first game, so I didn’t even consider the second. Yes, it iterated on interesting ideas around the blocks, but just after resolving one, I’d feel exhausted from the enormous sequence of movements and actions I’d need to do to get through the exit - and just be thrown into another mess of them. I really preferred something like Portal, where it’s just small executions of simple ideas that may require one act of ingenuity to use them right.
I also can’t really bring myself to care much about story in any game that’s so far post-apocalypse.
That’s fair, I got a little puzzle fatigue myself in the first game. I did find the story to be quite compelling, maybe it’s worth a watch instead of a play? Though I think that misses out on all the messages between other AI’s and terminals in the game, which add significant world building.
This is just my opinion and I don’t know if everyone will agree, but I found 2 significantly easier than 1. I 100%'d 2 and I think only one of the bonus puzzles really took me much time. I didn’t get the achievement for taking 20 or 30m, whatever it is, until one of the final bonus puzzles I was doing. You can play 2 without having completed 1 also, but knowing the story of 1 (and the DLC) does enrich 2. It might be worth a try.
(Your experience of 2 might be totally different. I love puzzle games and completed all of the bonus challenges of vanilla 1 and 2. I may have just thought 2 was easy from having experience or even that the puzzles clicked for me better. Just take any opinion of puzzle difficulties with a grain of salt. Everyone’s brain works differently.)
