ELEX II Is what you'd expect from a Piranha Bytes sequel. It's an improved version of ELEX with polished features. Story wise its a direct continuation of ELEX 1: You're playing as Jax who, after the events of the first game, went into "exile" because he failed to convince the people of Magalaan that an unknown alien race was going to invade the planet. 6 Years later and his little hut gets crushed by one of the alien space ships. While escaping the alien creatures, he gets bitten by one of them which effectively infects him with a mysterious disease. In my opinion the ELEX II's story is interesting as well as the characters. There are some characters that I wasnt a big fan of, but thats just personal preference, not an issue with the writing.
Biggest issue is still the presentation for me. The cut scenes feel very weird and some NPC's talk in a very calm way even if something very action loaded just happened seconds prior in the cut scene.
But thats okay, I expect this kind of jankyness from PB at this point.
Gameplay is fun. Again, some jankyness as expected but all in all a big improvement from ELEX 1.
If I can give you one advice: If you decide to play with one handed weapons, DONT use a shield as it prevents you from doing the dodging roll and instead just lets you "side step" which feels very clunky. If you play without a shield, the combat almost feels like a souls game. Its very responsive and the enemies are very readable so you can easily dodge enemy attacks if you pay attention to their attack patterns.
There is ALOT of content compared to ELEX 1. While I finished the main story and sidequests in about 50 hours in ELEX 1, it took me a whopping 80 hour playthrough to do the same in ELEX II.

If you liked ELEX 1 you DEFINITELY have to play ELEX II.