So everyone who is complaining that it looks the same, could you please explain what it is you were hoping for?
-More character classes. At a minimum, at least 1 new character class. Given how they all play rather similar and that seems to be even more of a case with the sequel, it isn't asking much to add a single character class to the mix to give it a bit more variety.
-More diverse subclasses and abilities. Recently I posted the warlock abilities and I think thats the right track, but removing bubble and rez in favor of more DPS abilities is boring and does little to provide distinction between character classes.
-Guns that don't function under the same archetypes as the previous game. For a sci fi game, Destiny is lacking on giving us sci fi heavy weaponary and instead gives us future takes on your standard assault rifle, shotgun, sniper, rocket launcher, etc. I think having those is great, but this is also the company that gave us the plasma pistol, needler, sticky grenade, energy sword. Give us weapons that truly feel sci fi.
-New enemy class. I'm happy they added in some additions to existing classes form what weve seen so far but the dogs and the melee cabal leave a lot to be desired. A new race with a bunch of new enemies would have really given us a better feeling of newness and helped diversify the enemy pool.
-Bosses. The bullet sponge boss structure needs to go. Like three expansions ago. They aren't fun or interesting to fight and weve seen how incredible raid bosses can be when given a bit of nuance to how you approach them. We obviously don't need them to function quite at the Raid level but variety in encounter mechanics would make replaying strikes (something were guaranteed to do a lot of) much more enjoyable if every boss functioned differently. And it'd be nice if they weren't just oversized regular enemies.
-Mission structures. This is probably one of my biggest gripes and probably one of the easiest to add. Change up the "go to point A, hold down while ghost scans area, rinse repeat until boss" structure that has been essentially every destiny mission. Give us a cool sparrow chase on Mars where were racing down an enemy cabal supply train, and then we work our way up it with reinforcements dropping down from support ships. Give it a timed section to complete the mission before it gets to its destination. Just a rough idea but again, if were going to be repeating missions as much as the first one (assumption, we have no idea if thats true) this would go a long way to helping mitigate fatigue.
I don't think any of that is really asking a lot from a studio of Bungie's capabilities as evidenced by their past output, especially given the resources at their disposal. All of that would feel like a huge bonafide sequel. Hell, maybe some of that is in the finished project and I would be stoked to see it. Its just the initial reveal didn't really come out with any of that and instead emphasized a lot of additions that really weren't all that important to me. It felt and looked like destiny 1 with some minor tweaks, and obviously that might not feel like the case once I play the beta. But judging from people here and around other gaming sites, the feeling of being underwhelmed isn't really just a neogaf thing. I'm happy for those that are totally sold, Destiny is a good game. It could be the best game tho.