Difficult to say what it’d be like as a newcomer as I’m quite familiar with the world and characters.

The gameplay is slick as ever and I’d argue more fun than 1 but there’s not much of a tutorial at the beginning - a fair amount of assumed knowledge implied.

I’d say for the best experience, it’d still be best to play the first one as there’s plenty of throwback storywise. They’re very much married in that respect.

If your curious, the 1st one must be quite cheap these days and well worth it in my opinion.