Creed was great because it took the familiar formula (that Stallone helped create, certainly) and gave it a new, fresh voice and new take and implemented a style that captured something unique in how it presented character, the city, the worldview and a life from an African-American point of view. I don't like the term "lightning in a bottle" but there's a lot of elements that came together to really make that movie work.
This is going backwards. A regression. Stallone is a fully capable director and writer but this is trying to force something instead of that happy accident and "lightning" that the first film had on top of Stallone likely missing the elements and worldview that gave the first movie that unique voice. It's cash-money, a franchise, and that's how they're going to approach the series from now on. Same thing happened with the Rocky sequels - a movie that was unique that, once Stallone gained more power into sequal-izing the story, started to become a parody of the original.