Normally I would give a memey recommendation for this type of thing, but I figure I should explain a few things.

The first and most obvious point is that this game is not Mechanicus, it doesn't play like Mechanicus. If I were to describe the jump I would say it feels a bit like going from Frostpunk to Frostpunk 2. A lot of the themeing is the same, but it's changed a lot.

The biggest difference is that rather than a batch of several customizable tech priests you now control a single 'Leader' character who is then commanding a certain number of fully disposable 'troops'. These troops can be upgraded at a meta level, but unlike Mechanicus 2018 they are fully disposable. There is zero penalty for getting your techno-chaff killed in the name of winning. This feels like a pretty big improvement towards the setting vibe of 40k, where anything can be sacrificed particularly to the mechanicus.

The second big change is that they've cut out the middle man and made the named characters from the previous game into the tech priest units, and done the same for the necrons with new units. Each of these characters has a custom upgrade tree and unique models that look quite nice, but it is a very different feel. I think a lot of people got caught up on this because the first few missions lock you sequentially to using specific characters to introduce them all. This is quite trying, especially because you get upgrades for each of them after the mission you can't try out.

These two changes mean the game feels and plays very differently. For one thing since units are much more expendable now the game tends to be more difficult than it's predecessor, expecting you to lose some units to complete objectives, particularly the final ones in a mission. Since only the leader needs to make it out alive these fights can be a lot more brutal than the ones in Mechanicus 2018 that basically always boiled down to 'kill the bad man with the war crime of the week'.

They also have a lot more of a tabletop vibe to the way things are set up, with you picking a pseudo army composition and getting to upgrade unit types by making it so they come with a sergeant or a special weapon or that kind of thing. It's very neat and I'm excited to play more of it.

As a side note, a lot of people with pretty similar stuff to mine are reporting performance issues, which is odd to me because the game is not generally running even a small strain on my specs. I don't know what's up with that but I'd guess it's a driver conflict or something

Edit: As I've played more and read some reviews from other people, I feel the need to note that despite what many people claim tech priest customization is still very much available. It just isn't unlocked at the start and is a little tucked away. You must complete certain missions, which unlock parts for a certain tech priest. Every priest does eventually get all the part options, for example Khepra starts with a medical mechadendrite while Captrix starts with an optical, but both can have either eventually. Additionally every priest has the equivalent of one of the base game classes from mechanicus 2018, except that the class tree for that tree has been expanded and the armor components mostly removed. Whenever you level them up which is usually whenever I complete a mission so far, they get two picks from the whole tree which can include weapon upgrades and stuff. These can be respecced at any time

Overall Verdict: This game is not Mechanicus 1. It is not going to be Mechanicus 1. If you judge it on how well it is Mechanicus 1 you probably won't like it. It is however an excellent warhammer strategy game focused on the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Necrons, and the characters from Mechanicus 1 with some buyt not all of the same design principles and a lot of new stuff added in. It's not like this game took Mechanicus 1 out back and shot it or something

Unfortunately, my first impressions are not good. I will happily change this review to a positive one if my personal experience improves. As a general note, I have only played as the Mechanicus so far.

First and foremost, I do not care for this soundtrack. It lacks all of the bombastic and memorable energy of the first game, and feels closer to the Ixion OST (which is good, but not 40K) than a proper follow-up to Mechanicus 2018. This is a bitter disappointment. I was really looking forward to getting another banger of an album. Again, I'll amend this bit later if it ends up winning me over. At least we can supplement this with the 2018 music using the DLC option.

Note: When using the 2018 OST, it plays back with a weird, sort of warbled effect. It sounds like the speakers are distant, or it's being passed through a noise gate? Maybe it's being ducked by another source in the game's audio? Really distracting.

Performance is bad. My machine is certainly not a supercomputer, but even on the lowest settings I can barely push 40 FPS. This is not that big of a deal for me, as this isn't the kind of game where rapid reflexes that rely on high FPS are present. Just a minor annoyance.

My big issue here is structure. I vehemently dislike the fact that your leader character is the lynchpin for every single mission. If they die, GG, game over, time to reset. This leads me to keep them back, out of danger and safe, but then they can't leverage their abilities and my fodder all die, leaving the leader alone and incapable of completing the mission. If I push them forward into danger to use their skills, even cautiously, the leader gets focused by all of the enemies and then they die. I like this idea in concept, but the execution is questionable at best.

I get that lots of people found the first game too easy due to tailoring your force in certain, very powerful ways, but it seems like the entire gameplay loop of the skirmish battles in this game pigeonholes you into a very specific style of play, which I have not really enjoyed so far. I hope that this aspect smooths out as I progress further and get a bit stronger. Who knows, maybe this will become one of those games that's notorious for a rough few hours at the start, then improving once you've invested a little time. I sure hope so.

Your performance on a given mission isn't tied to your rewards anymore, and coupled with the fact that every turn doesn't count anymore either (in regards to the Awakening timer mechanic from the first game), it gives the missions a really stilted feeling of objective over everything. No need to go the extra mile, no need to kill everything or tap into all of the data points (which are now absent, it would seem). Only the bare minimum.

I miss being able to pick and choose what rewards from missions I needed the most at any moment to prioritize what I did and in what order. I also dislike the linearity of the missions. The dungeon crawl aspect of the original was fantastic, and that's almost entirely absent here. I wish it still told you how difficult a mission would be before starting it, too. I do like the little narrative choices you get to make as you go, though.

The cognition system seems to be lacking depth compared to the original. It's not a puzzle anymore, it's a feedback loop of "did you bring enough Skitarii Rangers to play keep-away with the enemies and generate more than you need" every turn.

My last complaint is the lack of customization for the fighting forces. The upgrade trees are cool, but I can't really make the characters mine. I'm sure there's a few viable builds for all of the leaders, but one of my favorite aspects of the original was tailoring my squad to my exact tastes. I do appreciate that you can respec for free at any time between missions, but there doesn't seem to be much point.

Some positives do need to be said. The visuals are spectacular, the sound effects are punchy, the voice acting is great, and I'm glad we got the garbled speech option for the AdMec. That's fun. The artwork and character portraits are the highlight for me. Really nice work! The battlefields have all been stunning so far as well, really beautiful and atmospheric. I appreciate how you can drop pieces of the environment to use as cover, that's neat. You can even crush enemies beneath them. Fun! I also like the world map and faction management elements, but on the whole, I do feel a bit disappointed so far. I will carry on to give it a fair chance, but when your first impressions are this negative and you've got limited time each week to rack up hours in-game, it does make it a little challenging to stay engaged.

What happened?

Im a big 40k fan and loved the first Mechanicus game. So when they announced the 2nd part, i was beyond excited.
But now that i have played some houres, something just feels off.
It does not recapture the athmosphere and flair of the first game at all. For some reason the developers have taken out all the defining parts, that made the first game so special.

- The Soundtrack falls very flat compared to the first one and even sounds weirdly warped at
times. I listened to both of them (old OST and new) back to back and the new soundtrack
just sounds like a remix of the first Game and the OST of IXION (composed by the same
guy). Nothing new and very underwhelming. Especially in comparision to the absolute
banger soundtrack of the first game.

- The amazing unit customization of the first game was replaced with 5 premade charakters,
that can be tweaked slightly. The new system cant hold a candle to the old one.
Furthermore, only one (sometimes 2) charakters can be taken into a mission. The rest of
the slots get filled up by very bland generic Mechanicus faction units.

- The new premade Charakters are all "vital" to the story and thus arent allowd to die in any
mission. So most mission boild down to babysitting the main Charakters and throwing the
regular units between them and the threat "get down mister president style".

- No more risk vs reward, when ascending into necron Tombs. The tense navigation of the
Tombs was replaced by a singular path the player can't stray from. Not even a walk imput is
required, as the charakters just walk on their own. I found myself looking away from the
screen until the nex skirmish started, thats how unengaging the
system is.

- Combat feels very shallow compared to the first game. Because there is only one Charakter
in each mission, who actually has abilities, the combat loop feels incredibly simplified.
Gone are the head scratching Minutes, when trying to figure out how to best resolve the
next turn. No more chaining of Moves, Actions and Attacks far beyond the boundries of a
regular turn, by making clever use of the games recources. No more tailoring a variety of
Techpriests to specific playstyles, so they can work together like
a well oiled Machine. Its basically less of everything.

- This is just a minor point, but its bugging me because it further detracts from the
athmosphere. In the first game all Techpriests spoke Lingua Technis betwen each other.
Uncomprehensible for normal Humans, but it gave them a ton of charakter.
In Machanicus II everyone just speaks plain english and it feels so much less immersive.
In the Setings the Devs gave the option to turn Lingua Technis back on. But then
Charakters who arent supposed to speak it also speak
it sometimes + it messes up the Audio output and just plays a single line of dialogue
repeated up to 5 times,
instead of vyceling through them.

Machanicus II is not a bad game, but its a shadow of the first entry in the series. So sadly, i can not recommend it.

Go play the first Game, it's still fantastic.