I think I'm going to go against the grain here and say that overall, I think I liked episode one better than two, although it was close. They were better at different things.
+ The pacing of this episode was far improved, but..
–...that came at the expense of exploration. I agree with the previous poster that it had an "on rails" feeling.
+Character relationships are getting better/more interesting (especially w/ the Dad), but...
–...to echo a few others, the new director is just awful. He's just a stereotypical hardass who had me rolling my eyes whenever he opened his mouth. We are told that he's more complex (he was close with Davies) but we never actually see it. He just yells at Erica the entire time. Boring.
–The puzzles were not as interesting. I actually enjoyed piecing together the memory in Episode 1, if not the gallivanting everywhere to get the clues. Simply putting events in order was not as satisfying. The secret box could have been a neat opportunity to have a The Room-style (go play that game if you have an iOS device, it's fantastic) puzzle, but Erica just solves it for you. The voice-activated door was pretty ridiculous, and I know that ridiculous logic comes with the territory for these kinds of games...I just thought that one stood out in its riduculousness for some reason.
And the quiz...sorry, I thought it was silly, and a very direct and lazy way of getting some puzzles in the game. It would have been far more satisfying and immersive to have to rely on that knowledge in a more natural way with the environment.
–A minor thing, some really awkward animations made me laugh out loud, especially Erica's fist. The way the dean sat at his desk made his left arm look enormous.
–Why did John just sit at his desk the entire game, especially during a time when one of their own has been captured?
Sorry if this sounds overly negative. The plot was definitely less predictable this time around and had me guessing (except for maybe the dean character) and I'm excited to see where this goes. And the art/music is still as amazing as ever.
