Watch Dogs 2 isn't bad, but it isn't great

Watch Dogs 2 is a lot like walking into a Starbucks.

Both are full of 20-something hipsters and both deliver some solid enjoyment, if you're willing to sift through some cringe-worthy moments to get there.

WD2 is like its predecessor in name and concept only. Like the first game, WD2 puts you into the shoes of a hacker-- this time the likable Marcus rather than the emotionless Aiden-- who can manipulate seemingly anything and everything in the open world.

WD2's open-world San Francisco offers a veritable sandbox of hacking and mayhem options and when free-roaming, it feels great. Inside of WD2's story missions, however, the game's design choices and stubborn insistence on stealth severely slash those options.

Right out of the gate, WD2 does a fantastic job of differentiating itself from its predecessor. Marcus has a ton of personality and his companions-- members of the hacker group DEDSEC-- are all neon-wearing cool guys and gals who wouldn't be out of place at a Skrillex show.

Where Aiden and his cliche quest for revenge fell flat in WD, Marcus and company keep WD2 consistently fresh and sometimes funny. Most of WD2's humor comes across as genuine but it wears thin rather quickly.

WD2's story is pretty well-trodden territory. Marcus and the rest of DEDSEC are hell-bent on thwarting the government's plans to collect, sell and otherwise bastardize everyone's personal data collected online. It's a tale you've heard before if you're familiar with any hacking/science fiction story.

WD2's story doesn't break any new ground and sadly, neither do its missions.

With the exception of a couple of especially clever missions, most of WD2's main campaign has you tasked with infiltrating an area in the open world, hacking a terminal to retrieve information and escaping your pursuers-- with some hacking puzzles thrown into the equation somewhere in the middle.

WD2's run of the mill go here and hack formula gets stale quick. Later levels are made artificially difficult with the addition of more, better armored guards.

WD2 is designed to make stealth a first option. Marcus has several gadgets and gizmos with which to aid in his infiltration like a flying drone, an RC car, grenades, a stun gun and plenty more. WD2 makes it clear early on, however, that non-stealthy play styles are to be punished by design.

WD2's stealth won't soon be confused with Thief of Dishonored, but its serviceable. Usually. WD2's guards often seem unfairly attuned to your location and will radio for help at the slightest mysterious sound.

When the bullets do start flying, WD2 feels generic and weak. The combat is a standard 3rd person, cover-based affair, but when Marcus can't take more than one or two shots without being near death, it's not a viable option for long.

Once stealth is abandoned, so are most of WD2's hacking options that make the game a sandbox experience. When you are discovered, the game turns into a GTA-meets Gears of War experience that no one was asking for.

In some seriously unfair stealth sequences, I found myself finding ways to cheese the game by sprinting around a corner, knocking an enemy out with stealth and hiding until a separate guard crossed next to an explosive panel that I could hack to explode and knock him out.

WD2 rarely felt like the full-throttle, hack anything to accomplish your goals, experience that developer and publisher Ubisoft intended.

After completing the main campaign, WD2 offers plenty in the way of re-playability in the form of driver missions (essentially being an Uber service in SF), collectibles, side missions and multiplayer modes, but none of them feel especially important or compelling.

WD2 does little to make progression feel meaningful. The game does offer skill points that can be spent on a RPG-like skill web, but the upgrades feel miniscule. Things like the ability to aim down sights better or have your RC car move faster are not satisfying rewards for spending hours shuttling folks around the city.

WD2's driving mechanics, as an aside, do feel good. They're arcadey but surprisingly responsive, making what driving you do have to do in the game rather enjoyable.

With all of my gripes on WD2, the game is leaps and bounds better than its predecessor and it's not a terrible experience.

In the rush of games near the end of 2016, WD2 might be a bit overshadowed and maybe that's for the best.

WD2 is a solid, if ultimately unspectacular open world experience that improves on the original in just about every way.

Like its predecessor, WD2 is likely bound for discount bins well before it has seen a year on store shelves. At that time, it's an enjoyable pickup.

Watching Marcus and his merry band of hipsters save the world against cyber-terrorism is admittedly a decent, if slightly guilt-inducing time, but Ubisoft has a long way to go if its hacker version of GTA is to ever rival its legendary source material.