>>713864535 (OP)After having a few days to think about it, DS2's story is just as good, but is simply going for a different thing than 1.
1 is a veeery slow buildup to insane emotional release in a 3 hour finale.
2 takes its emotional core and more evenly spreads it through the whole story. And as I've now been watching others play through it, the endgame twists make many earlier scenes feel way different with the new context. The only sort of "miss" that I'd say 2 has, is that Kojima over-sold how much Neil would be relevant. I still really like his part of the story and what it adds, but all the marketing made it seem like he would be a bigger deal.