Welp, I did it. Beat the game, ground out all the costumes, learned all the girls stuff, etc.
As a fan of Huniepop 1, but with the only returning characters being ones I didn't much care for in the first game (Really? Lola and Jessie? Ugh!) I went into Huniepop 2 with just timid hype. While I won't say I was disappointed, I certainly wasn't impressed either.
The new cast are a mixed bag. Some of them I really enjoyed (Ashley, Lillian, and Candace are hilarious, and Leilani is adorable), some I was just mostly indifferent to (Polly (not the trans thing, couldn't care less, I don't like her retro costumes), Abia, Nora), and some are just awful (Zoey, who has LESS personality than Rei Ayanami, Brooke, because we really needed two milf characters
, and well, everything that needs to be said about Suki / Sarah has already been said but that's not gonna stop me). Of course Jessie and Lola return, with nothing new to offer.
That said, while I did enjoy some of the new characters, the entire cast is overall less compelling than HP1's was. Coupled with the fact that the buildup is too fast to develop any real attachment to the characters, in that regard the story (which otherwise would be great) kinda falls on its face.
As far as gameplay goes, I felt like HP2 actually out-shined its predecessor in some ways, with some really great "tweaks" thrown in... which would be fine, if they weren't cripplingly punishing if you got the wrong baggage and a shitty board. In particular for me, the worst offenders were Zoey, and Lillian, with their switch to Broken Heart Tokens. I literally intentionally threw any attempt at the final marathon finish date if I got these two in conjunction with each other, because it just wasn't worth the frustration.
TLDR: While it's definitely not a masterpiece, it's neither as bad as some say, or as good as the Steam reviews say. And yes, I paid for it.