TLDR:
A pretty good survival game with fun building, survival mechanics, traps, helper NPCs, etc. Decent combat, with maybe a bit too much power given to the players, and a story that didn't pan out very well. A decent survival game with some good things going for it, though not as strong as it's predecessor where it counts. 7/10

The good:
The visuals are much better and the level design felt more rich. The forests feel properly dense and good to navigate. The new building system is better to work, allowing for much more specific manual control to let you engage in more nuanced construction. The inclusion of friendly NPCs was a welcome addition and it worked fairly well. The game ran well with fairly high settings and I played through the whole game with 2 friends and we never suffered a networking or connectivity issue.

The less good:
There were some balancing issues, the more obvious one was the deep inclusion of firearms that make mowing through groups a bit too easy, especially when playing with multiple players. The less obvious balancing issue was the golf cart. When you get at least a bit of speed with the golf cart, it will one-shot most living things in the game. Not necessarily an issue in of itself, but the fact that we found not 1, but 3 golf carts in the first couple hours of gameplay meant that we could just mow down an entire camp, pilfer all the valuables, and drive off and do it again. It basically allowed us to skip the early game difficulty when you are supposed to be more poorly equipped. Though admittedly, driving through dense forest and swerving between trees while blaring techno music was quite a vibe.
The story was a bit less coherent than the first. The build up to the end was fine as they are very shortcoming with the details, forcing you to piece it together yourself, helping with the mystery of it all. The main issue is when you get the final details and put the final pieces of the story together, it doesn't amount to much of anything. Also I agree with my friend who felt like the final boss was "a wet fart", resulting in a disappointing conclusion of the game.

Oddly enough I think people who haven't played the original will probably like this game more than those who did and were looking for a big follow up to the first title. Not an outright bad game, hence the positive review, but in comparison to the first, was a little bit of a letdown.

Nobody reads the reviews for sure, so I'll say I'm gay.

too scared to go into the caves alone