I just wrapped it up, here's what I liked:

I liked the graphical evolution of the game. Storywise and aesthetically it kinda made sense. The first STEM is in it's more prototype phase, where as the new one is far more polished. The gameplay and movement has also vastly been improved. While still tankish in nature, the controls allow me to maneuver Sebastian far more efficiently. The crafting and upgrade system has also been seriously diled up. scavenging for parts and materials to make bullets and weapons with was pretty great, especially when you are in a tight situation. Speaking of which, the stealth has been vastly improved in this game. In the last one I've literally never used stealth as an option because I was repeatedly punished for it, here, there were entire segments were I would go out of my way to avoid the enemy. I don't remember the last time i've been this nervous too encounter a standard zombie, especially with so many other more dangerous monsters running about.

The design of the monsters were also again interesting(though not as diverse as the first one), and whenever clumped in a claustrophobic corridor they mixed really well with the gameplay.

Now for what I didn't like:

I mean, I expected the story to be campy, so I won't really berate the game about that too much. There were some touching moments that didn't make me laugh hysterically, but can we fucking talk about the main villain? Or the absolute lack of one? So who is my main antagonist here? Theodore? Stefano? Myra? The weird Mobius matrix dude who points at the camera in the most awkward fucking way ever? They are all over the place, and three of those villains can be clumped with just being power hungry megalomaniacs who hold very little presence in the game. Ruvik may not have been an insanely great villain, but he held a presence within the game. You learned about his past, and as a player you had some relationship with him. Stefano was extremely annoying, and the boss fight was not only easy but very tedious. I felt no sense of dread or anxiety whatsoever . Theodore, on the other hand, had so little going for him the bosses from the first game had to come back to fill in for his dumb ass (which ironically is my favorite part of the game.) They were really pushing Theodore to be this Jigsaw Kruger type of dude with the whole fire monsters and mind games, but you can't really be convincing if your presence in the game is not felt. Oh, and I completely forgot about the mobius guy until he appeared in the end and just...well, died.

It's clear the game wanted Myra to be the main villain, so why didn't they just go with that? it would have made the final game far more impactful and meaningful, especially if they kept her identity secret. Theodore and Stefano could have been mobius agents who became corrupted with Union falling apart, and they would have naturally fit into the story of the game without having to jeprodize the flow of the narrative.

Also, why do horror games break what doesn't even need fixing? The location's were excellent in the last one, and worked well with the style of gameplay. There was literally no need for the inclusion of that much open space. Union isn't even a full sandbox, it's just a tedious elongated hub that hurts the pacing. That much spaces does not MIX with the way sebastian moves. He gets tired in a few seconds and starts slowly pacing towards wherever it is the game wants me to go. Not to mention that the enemies that spawn in the city are way to powerful at the beginning, but because they're in such an open space I never had to fight them. I ran away, and if I got past them they quickly forgot I even existed. But even running away was a chore because after a few seconds Sebastian libs like he has a stick up his ass so the enemies are basically following me the entire way. It really undermines the sense of dread the first game consistently enforced and turns it into a chore, which essentially kills any desire in my to replay the game. The best sections of the game are in controlled, narrow spaces that allow sebastian to move around perfectly and use the environment to survive. You can't do that if a dozen powerful enemy spawns are attacking you from all ways.

Also scavenging is less fun, because for me to get more AMMO, i need to venture into different parts of union, for which I usually lost the resources I had as opposed to gaining them.

I liked the game by the way, but for all the steps it took forward, it took a few key steps back.