Alright. So I've spent a good amount of time in this game, trying to get all the achievements (as of writing this review, I only have three more to go). After all those hours, I can't really recommend this game to newer players. Just a clarifier: I have not played the first game, so I won't be making any comparisons to it.

Gameplay
The base builder aspect of the game itself is pretty good, but that's all I can really think of when it comes to enjoyment. 90% of the game is side questing, to which you can only select one at a time with each taking a sizeable amount of time (if I had to give an estimate, roughly 15-30 minutes per side mission). For me, the gameplay loop consists of progressing the main storyline with the selected genius, getting to a pause where nothing is going on, allowing you to catch up on side missions (some lock out at certain points) before continuing the main story once again. Majority of my time spent on the game is during these built in story breaks. Of course, a person can choose to ignore the many side quests and continue, but that involves missing out on recruiting henchmen, taking down super agents, and loot.

Story
To put it bluntly, the story is pretty lackluster. To give a rough generalization, each genius has their own way of taking over the world, and the story is pretty much them getting closer and closer to that goal. The side stories/side quests in the game provide more flavor text, but that shouldn't be what carries the narrative. Heck, the side stories barely even affect the main narrative at all. Outside of the side stories, those characters don't exist in the main plot at all. A person wouldn't even know they existed unless they looked them up online or actually did the side quests. The characters that do end up making an appearance in the main story are one off antagonists that are pretty much forgotten within an hour of progression. I don't know if I've been spoiled by Baldur's Gate 3, but each genius in those side stories repeat the same exact lines verbatim. It could've added extra time in development, but having each respective genius' personalities shine more in the side stories could've made it worth sitting through each dialogue line rather than skipping it. Having each genius taking part in a different interaction with each crime lord or super agent would have made replaying the game several times a little more worthwhile. The dialogue scenes themselves are also boring. It's just a still background with the two conversing character models standing across from each other with text bubbles in the middle. This might be a minor nitpick, but when you've played for +340 hours, it gets REALLY old.

It had potential, but its genuinely a horrible game. Clunky at best, lots of glitches i came across pretty quick that broke saves. Poorly designed. If they would have at least made it simple for mods, they could have been salvaged by the community. Little details shows lack of compassion for their own game, such as how they handle modes. Campaign, everything is locked, understandable. Sandbox, forced infinite money so you cant enjor normal gameplay and grow rich. "Sandbox" without control over anything, even just those simple mechanics letting players control a few important aspects of gamplay in settings could have made it a worthy game, but instead its just shallow to me. Though some may find it fun, i cant reccomend it.

Shame there are no neutral reviews. It's a nice game, which has improved on the original in a lot of ways: fewer bugs, more mechanics, more quality-of-life features. But it doesn't live up to its predecessor's humour! Torturing enemy agents by moonwalk and singing "heee-heee"? Nope. Stuffing them into science devices (probably) built for an entirely different purpose? Sadly, no. Sure, you can put them in traps now, but the animations are exactly the same as if the trap were triggered normally. Yawn...

Currently, I've played around 12 hours on my playthrough and I've only found two pieces of (boring) loot. Reading the heist descriptions is also not as fun as it was in part 1, everything is just a boring box to tick. Plus, I'm playing on medium difficulty and I've never been in a real situation where red alert was warranted.
So yeah, it's fine, but doesn't live up to expectations...