Finally got round to playing and beat Last of Us 2 to see how bad it is.
The gameplay is an improvement over the first with much more movement options in combat. The encounters I found less memorable than the original but not bad. There are a number of larger areas to fight in which are far bigger than anything in the original game and they do stuff this time with the different factions fighting each other something not seen until the DLC in the first game.
The gameplay loop is not good, due to the story and the bigger location sizes it has way more downtime in the game and you end up just looking for equipment rather than anything else more engaging such as stealth, gunplay or even puzzels.
The story is self is pretty much what has been said before an overlong and drawn out story with very repetitive themes that aren't looked at with the depth the writers think they are. The fact you play 1/3 of the game as the character who killed Joel is an interesting idea but an interesting idea doesn't mean good execution.
Abby, I ended up feeling nothing for as she really doesn't have much of a personality of her own with the writers instead choosing to make everything about her a parallel to Joel or Ellie as a lazy way to make you care for her and to convey the themes. Abby isn't a character rather than a lazy native tool.
Ellie has a love triangle with a baby in the mix then Abby has to as well. Ellie had giraffes then Abby gets Zebras. Ellie pets a dog then Abby has to have a dog and it is like that for pretty much everything. The worst case of this is when they rehash the whole adult protecting a child with a secret thing with Abby being the stand-in for Joel, Lev for Abby and Yara for Tess.
The story due to the pacing, how long many of the areas are and the issues stated above it ends up feeling really dull.
Uncharted 2 really is the start of ND downfall. In Uncharted 2 after a huge action setpiece on a train instead of going right into another action part or even a platforming or a puzzle they have this have slow walk throw a Tibetan village which was honestly a nice change of pace and very well done. However, once the game came out and that part was praised Neil Druckmann kept doubling down on it, first with the Last of Us 1 which did work for that game then with Uncharted 4 which really hurt that game and now with the Last of Us 2 where the what you could call the Tibetan village moments now make up most of the game.
The game does a lot right, it looks amazing, the gameplay for what little it has is good, most of the acting is good if not great, the music is also good but the issue is Neil Druckmann thinks he is a better writer than he is and doesn't put gameplay first.