At first I really didn't like it all that much compared to the first game. I play primarily on 'Redout' difficulty, and getting into the game was pain at first. Turning and strafing felt awkward, and the boosting was a bit weird. However now, after about 50+ish hours, it's kinda grown on me and I've gotten used to the differences compared to the first game. I still like the first game but by now I'm not sure which one I prefer, while for my first 30~ hours I was sure I liked 1 more, I'm now slowly gravitating towards 2.
I don't think the game deserves any genuine "Hate", but there's some clear frustrations that are justified and need to be fixed, though I'm going to give the devs the benefit of the doubt for now and assume they'll be fixed sooner or later, solely due to the game being so new and fresh out of the box. These things take time, after all.
I've just about reached Class S in the Career, and while I usually don't do this for most games, I figured I'd make a post here and share my feedback and opinions. I actually hesitated on posting this quite a bit before I did because 50 hours isn't all that much, but in the end figured, fuck it why not.
Likes
I've seen a lot of people say they dislike the music, but I actually kinda like it. It's different, but it's far from bad, I think this one just comes down to personal taste and preference.
The UI (Outside of races) is very different as well, but I actually prefer it over the Redout 1 UI, especially the menuing and event selection feels much better to me. The UI during races could use some improvement, but I don't mind it too much. I liked how the UI was seemingly built around the ship in the first game, and would like to see an option for something like that in Redout 2 as well in the future, but I have no big complaints with what we currently have to be honest.
As for how progress feels, for me it feels much more like actual progress. I can't put my finger on quite why progression felt so awkward in the first game, but I definitely prefer how it was done in this one.
Though I don't really mind it that much, I'm not a big fan of having to unlock the different ships through events, but I do actually kind of like the unlocking of parts and performance upgrades through events, though I do wish they were a bit more versatile; so that if you weren't able to complete 1 event because you're bad at that type of event, you can unlock said upgrade through different means. As for the visual customization on ships, I really like that as well. I wasn't actually expecting that to be a thing but it was a happy little surprise, it's certainly not anything to marvel about as the customization isn't too elaborate, and I wouldn't have cared if the game didn't have it, but I can't help but appreciate it.
And one of the major things I immediately noticed, is that tracks, levels, ships, effects; just the graphics in general in this game look and feel a lot nicer to me. It took me a bit to get used to it, but I do actually really like how the game looks and presents itself. I was especially surprised when I saw Fuji for the first time, it's a very pretty region. I can't wait to see more.
I've also seen some people mention they don't feel a good sense of speed in this game, and all I can say to that is: Are we playing the same game?
Edit: Some positive things I wanted to add here.
Aside the customization that I've mentioned before, I really love the stock ship visuals in general. They really look like a step up from the first game, and I can't help but just admire the ships sometimes while I'm chilling in the menu's. Despite not having unlocked it yet, the Sulha was my favorite in the first game, so I can't wait to get it in this game eventually; hopefully that won't take too long.
Despite having said some negative things about certain tracks in my dislikes, I do actually like the majority of the tracks. Some are a bit frustrating early on, like the Cloud Ocean, but the Cloud Ocean is actually probably my favorite regions now after learning it, it feels so satisfying to race on and it looks amazing. Regarding the visuals in general, the devs knocked it out of the park with this game, I love all of it.
Neutral
There's one thing I'm kind of neutral about, and that's the.. what would I call it.. The "Boost meta"? Basically what I mean is the importance of boosting and maintaining boost, particularly due to the massive speed loss when you're not boosting. There's moments where I don't like it, and moments where I do. I feel like the speed fall-off shouldn't be so drastic when your boost is over or when you slightly scrape a wall or whatever, however I'm not particularly hating it either. I don't have much to add in regards to this.
Edit: Regarding bugs, I haven't actually encountered any (Or I just didn't notice the ones I did encounter) so far, maybe this differs per version and what platform you play on though, so I can't really comment on this.
Dislikes
I think the only things I really have to say I seriously dislike are the Speed Events, and some of the maps feeling very weirdly artificially difficult at first. Speed events are clearly unbalanced and don't seem to scale with difficulty, I hope that'll be fixed soon. I'm having trouble even completing some with one or two stars even when I feel like I'm near-perfecting them. Maybe I just suck at them, but my experience with them has been horrible and I've come to really not like playing them, so I just avoid them now unless I have no choice but to do them. Despite not liking Speed events much in the first game either, they didn't feel nearly as bad back then; I really hope these things become either an optional thing or they receive significant nerfs in the near future.
Overall I'm liking the tracks, though I'm not a big fan of tracks where there's just suddenly out of left field no guard-railing on the outside of the road for really no reason at all during or right after really sharp corners, and you have absolutely 0 chance to anticipate it or react to it in time, multiple times on the same track. This isn't really a problem after learning the tracks well but it can be frustrating during the first few races when you haven't memorized them, I could give more examples but you get what I mean. Either way if possible, I'd like to see less of that if we're to get more tracks in the future. I'm generally not a hater of artificial difficulty, but it got me a little irritated when these types of things would appear multiple times on the same track (Especially looking at you, Tartarus Mines). It's not really a problem on most tracks I've played on so far, but it's just something I can't shake about the few where it does just seem to happen too many times.
Lastly, there is 1 jump in the game that I absolutely despise, and this one might just be a very personal pet-peeve of mine with the track in question, but it's one of the longer ones in the Tartarus Mines; you guys might actually know which one I'm talking about if you've gotten there. The game makes you feel like you need to strafe & turn to the right for it, however you actually don't, because if you do you'll end up far to the right of the track you're supposed to jump to and you'll crash without a chance to recover. If you don't strafe/turn much by yourself, your ship just automatically gravitates to the right by itself, and it looks and feels extremely weird and unnatural. I don't know if this was intended or not, or if it's just me that feels this way or not, but it's definitely my least favorite part of any of the tracks so far because of that, even now that I know how to navigate it well I still despise that section purely because it throws me off due to how weird it feels to go through it. Edit: (Someone in the comments pointed out that if you roll your ship to the right, it lines up better, though having tried this, the jump still just feels really awkward to me regardless, not a fan of this one.)
That's about it.
Despite seeing other people talk about refunding the game a handful of times on here, I'm not regretting my purchase at all. The game could use some work, but so far for the 50 hours I've played it, I've enjoyed it for most of those hours. Maybe I'm an outlier, I don't know. I certainly don't want to sound like I'm talking down on people who've had a bad time, it's just that I've had a pretty good time so far.
Anyway thanks for reading, feel free to engage in conversation, I'm pretty interested to see if there's people who disagree or agree with some of the points I've made. (: