Bumpage:
DLed and played this at the weekend, and I was pleasantly surprised.
I was expecting more of the same, but they've really paid attention to the community's complaints about the first game.
This'll make a nice diversion from Guild Wars for me.
Improvements:
More character specialisation, with the opportunity to specialise even further within a defined class. This is something it desperately needed, as characters began to feel very watered down at high levels in the first game.
Party banter. Granted, the actor's voices aren't the most inspiring, but this is a welcome addition; blatantly nicked from BG2, but it owned in that, so it could own in this.
Hub style map means that it feels more like the MP map from DS1 than the god-awful linear SP map from that game. This should also mean that you'll get the chance to develop long-term stories with the people in Eirulan or whatever it's called.
It's still got those wonderful creature ambushes from the first game which were so cool; see a bush trembling, then seconds later Mr. Toothy'll jump out and try to gnaw on yer mush. Aces
The powers are nice too; kind of like skills from a traditional MMORPG, but you only get one for each character active at a time. Long cooldown times (I think this is linked to how many kills you get), but gloriously OTT in the eye-candy department.
The whole game seems to be more quest oriented, following a more traditional RPG path as opposed to the pure hack'n'slash play from the first game. Granted, it's still VERY heavily hack'n'slash, but there's enough character interaction in there to divert you from the tedium of killing beasts...
Oh yeah, and Superchunky's back!
Gore galore!
The downside is, so far from what I've played, the map can feel a little constrained. It's not had those massive wide-open areas that that first one had, more just paths through impenetrable forest. I hope this is not true in the final release, as there was massive fun to be had in the first game just wandering off and getting lost (in the MP map that is).
Also, whilst it runs fantastically, they have still chosen to limit the camera angle.
After the completely free-roaming camera of GW, this feels incredibly restrictive. I'm not worried TOO much, as one of the first mods that came out for the first game was one that freed up the camera.