Minor Improvements and Major Disappointments
To explain the reason why I can be so disappointed with a game and yet give it 4 stars, you must understand I had a very high opinion of the first Infamous game. It was a reason for buying my PS3, though the first had faults with the traversal and occasional imbalances between the enemies guns and the distance you could accurately hit with your powers. It was a 5 star game at the time, unparalleled by its peers (I'm looking at you Prototype).
Infamous 2 offers improvements in terms of providing you with a melee weapon and attached combo system to alter combat options and makes the expected improvement on the graphics. However, I was disappointed to see the bad/good karma system still displays no shades of grey, you are either evil or angelic. Traversal still occasionally feels inaccurate, and often boils down to holding up and mashing the X button. Bizarrely, close to the end of the game you receive a new method of travel which significantly improves the climbing process, they need to give you this earlier!
The world is populated with moderately reactive citizens who change to reflect your actions throughout the game and a mass of official quests. The quests are basically the exact same as the first game, there are a few new mechanics at play but you will still take over areas in the city by running to location A and killing B in some variety.
So as I don't turn this into a wall of text I will conclude. The game is not a significant enough leap forward for myself and I feel others may feel the same. Having not played Infamous for a couple years it was nice to revisit the character and mechanics but too much of it felt too similar.
Lets hope Infamous 3 will take a risk and try something experimental.