From someone who loved Destiny 1 when it was released, who then went to hating it two months later when the content ran out and they revealed what they considered to be an "expansion", who then didn't play again until I bought the Destiny Collection 6 months ago and fell in love with it again because it was apparent they were taking a fair bit of crtitism on board and fixing it up with legitimate expansions in year 2 and year 3, Destiny 2 has been pretty good.

I've played for 5-8 hours and opened up two free roam areas (out of 4...I think...is it 5?). There is an actual story this time, the free roam missions are now called "adventures" and take you on a little slice of story in a dungeon instead of just "kill 5 enemies and collect their shit". The playable areas this time feel a lot more alive instead of the dead open areas we had in the first one. I haven't got to any strikes yet either nor have I reached max level (I'm level 8) so weapons and armour are just the basic bitch stuff.

The only negative I can think of at the moment is the microtransactions. They dog you more in this one. In D1 when you spend real money you got shaders and armour and emotes you could use account wide. Now shaders are one time use things and for people who change their armour colour 6 times in a session that really isn't the best. Hopefully that gets changed.

ayyyyyyyyyy. Half way there.

If you have played Destiny you would understand why sending out a review copy would be pointless. The only way to let the play the game was a simulated event. The game is always online and many of the events just don't work without proper matchmaking and mass all logging in to partake.

Personally I don't mind it. Now its seems we have less reviewers rushing out a review to be "1st" and actually playing the game. They still got 1 of those reviews, the Slant Review was published the night the game was released. No one in hell can you play enough of this game in a day and then write the review and still be able to knowagebly score it. 

Lore is in-game, and there is tons of it (relative to D1).  Story, all aspects of it, is tons better in D2.  

Its too early for me to have a real opinion on the encounter design.  But, so far, I feel like there is slightly more variety in this regard.  Just slightly more though.  I really wish there were some new enemy types.  

I've only played a few matches of PvP.  That's not my primary scene either.  I think that the reducting from teams of 4 to teams of 6 has slowed things down.  It has also made teamwork more important.  

I changed your OP to put links to the Meta pages in.

lol Slant gave BotW a 6/10. That's about all you need to know about their profesionalism. 

Aaand Destructoid finally released it's review of the game. According them it's really just more of the same with a few minor improvements. This brings the Metascore down to 84. Will the final score be able to stay in the 80's? Or will the first reviews be the only positive ones?

I'm confused why it's getting lower scores because it's more of the same? Isn't that every sequel ever?

Dark Souls, Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, Uncharted. All have spawned multiple sequels with the exact same UI and gameplay and still get 9/10 scores.

Destiny does the same thing and gets howled down for it. Is it because hating Destiny is cool?

What is your definition of "lower scores"? The original Destiny got a 76. If the sequel ends up at 84, that would be an improvement.

In any case, if the sequel is "more of the same," its quality would be "the same" as the original's 76.

I hope it flops so badly.