Recommended, but with caveats.

As of this writing, I have finished the game twice on PS5, have not played the DLC expansion, and am midway through the main story on PC. I had roughly 100 hours played on PS5. For Horizon Zero Dawn, I have nearly 500 hours played on PS4 and PC (not on Steam); and the majority of that time was played within one year of release on either platform, and I've 100% completed twice on PS4, once on PC.

The game is really good, and overall a worthy followup to the first. For those paying attention to the background lore in the first game, this one has a major payoff in that respect. The major companion characters from the first one return, and while still not as involved as you might want them to be, they do have more to do in this one. On the surface, the game plays very much like the original, with vastly improved traversal options. The inventory system has a very nice upgrade: you don't have to worry about having too much of anything, excess gets sent off to a stash you can visit any time (there's a fair number of them around the world). The focus mode has some nicely upgraded abilities. Plenty of interesting new characters as well.

But after reaching what is roughly the mid-point of the game, I find myself stuttering along with it, feeling no urgency to really plow through it like on my first playthrough, or like I do every time I pick up Zero Dawn. After 30-ish hours into a fresh PC playthrough, I remember why I didn't play the hell out of this game like I did the first one: the game suffers from what I call "the terrible too-s" as in: too much.

Too much emphasis on melee; which is still largely useless. Too many different resources. Too many gear upgrades needed. Too many new creatures that are too aggressive. Too many knockdowns/stuns/states, only some of which can be mitigated, that Aloy takes too long to recover from. Too many upgrade resources that can only be obtained from the toughest creatures in the game (if you have to beat the toughest thing out there before you can upgrade, what the hell is the point in upgrading?). Too many side activities. Too many skill trees, filled with too many skills of debatable usefulness, that require too many skill points, that ultimately make side quests non-optional as they are the main source of skill points.

The issue this game has is the same as the recent Assassin's Creed games: it gives you content exhaustion. This gigantic open world that is absolutely overstuffed with things to do; but almost none of it feels optional, because the character's upgrade paths require so much in terms of resources (be they skill points, currencies, levels, loot and/or gear upgrades), and the various activities to acquire these resources. All of this only vaguely optional content makes a playthrough feel like a checklist you need to finish rather than something you want to do; and for me it diminishes from the replay value, because there is so much stuff in there that you just never want to do again after completing once.

I know I've probably overemphasised the negatives: it really is a very good game, and I do recommend it, but I do warn that it feels too stuffed, which I feel diminishes from its replayability. If you've never played this game on PS%, you're likely to get a very enjoyable 100-ish hours of enjoyment out of it, but it probably won't leave you with any great desire to go through it again.