Yep, I'm late to this thread party but even so, I wanted to chime in:
The world of Stilwater is amazingly crafted in that it really feels like an actual thriving community complete with cheerleaders doing their cheers at the University. It's incredibly detailed.
However, where SR2 failed for me is that it was an open world game that had several missions that did not allow for open world solutions. I can totally understand if that's not a big deal for other gamers but for me, that was a huge failing. I'm a completionist so it wasn't until after witnessing many of my SR2 gaming sessions, my husband finally said to me "Are you sure you're enjoying yourself?" Because he had never heard me yell so often and so much at my computer screen while playing a game. That was when I realized SR2 just might not be for me. That, as well as the horrible controls even when using an Xbox controller, but the
icing on the cake for me was how my awesomely kickass thug diva, who was awesome in every single cutscene, would inevitably have to run around like she crapped her pants as she shot things who were running at her like they crapped their pants. It really killed the badass feeling for me.
So yeah, I just wanted to give my account as a fairly recent Saints Row fan who got on the bus at the end. I'm not willing to admit that my opinion would be drastically different if I had started with the SR franchise from the beginning because I'd been playing open world games pre 2008 and I just have a hard time believing that the open world without open world solutions for missions would have flown with me then.
