I prefer this one over the first game. I was utterly bored with the first game. But I ended up getting into this one and getting decent enjoyment out of it. And I like how smooth and steady the progress is in this game. Nothing is too hard, nor too easy. And everything feels quite fair. You're constantly making steady progress and don't really get stuck much. I also like the amount of puzzles in this game. Some of them give your brain some good work.
However, the gameplay is the only decent thing in this game. Most every other aspect sucks. Especially the characters. Everyone is just plain bad. The worst of them being Leeza X, the female main character. She's the tryhard cool gal with constant mediocre attempts at being witty. And I'm guessing that they were trying to make her the new main character? And another game in the series would have been with her? Well, you can see how that went.
I have also come to dislike the idea of boss fights most of the time. They are not necessary and games can be great without them. Sometimes they're ok, when they're worked into the game and story very naturally. But other times, they can really bring down an otherwise smooth experience. And the boss fights in this game go into the latter category. One of the boss fights actually made me have to stop playing. I knew I would have busted my ass for a pretty long time trying to beat it. And I just wasn't interested. I've actually had to stop playing quite a few games because of a boss fight. I'm tired of the level of stress they provide. It's not worth it. And they often turn an otherwise smooth experience on its head. That's unacceptable. They shouldn't contrast with the rest of the experience so severely.
While I did get some enjoyment out of the game, I still have to give it a below average rating, because something I didn't like made me have to stop playing and I do consider the thing in question a genuine flaw.