Priv 2 is a pretty good game.
Pros :
IMHO the plot is pretty good. Movies are atmospheric and appropriate, acting is on the whole pretty good (I have a lot of time for both Clive Owen and Christopher Walken ... although Walken has been in a couple of movies he probably regrets).
There are a LOT of different ships in the game:
- nearly 20 different fighters to purchase/fly (although you'll probably only bother with 3-5 as your finances increase).
- cargo ships available for hire. Useful for both cargo runs to make money early in the game, and for extra firepower on difficult missions.
- 4 different pirate clans (+ the Kindred), all with their own light, medium and heavy fighters, plus cruisers and shuttles, as well as the CIS(militia/insystem security).
A fair bit of variety in the missions you can fly. Apart from the direct plot-related missions, there are also random side-quests, the typical patrol/escort/crush-kill-&-destroy missions, and you can even turn on your 'distress beacon receiver' and pick up extra missions in flight.
Cons :
The game can be buggy. Mine tends to crash every so often - not very often, but frustrating when you've just spent half-an-hour questing from one side of the system to the other. Probably depends on your hardware setup as to whether this will affect you or not.
Poor enemy AI. One of the available guns (I'll let you figure out which one) has both high damage and extreme range. Mount 4-5 of these suckers on your Freij MkII and you can mow down hundreds of enemies before they even get within range of you as the foolishly try to fly head-to-head. Still, if there are enough of them to get close enough (i.e. the ones that make it past your intitial gun barrage), they can still cause some worries. And of course, it will take you some while to earn the money to be able to mount that sort of firepower - the privaliges of success.
Not really part of the WC Universe :
Ummmm ... don't overreact there guys. Yes, it's still part of the official WC Universe, but there are no Kilrathi, no Confed, no Retros (damn ... oh well, I'll just pretend the Kindred are really Retros in disguise). Still, I personally don't consider this a con. I don't 'not buy' a game just because I can't kill Kilrathi.
Overall :
If I had to make the choice again, I'd still definitely buy the game. If you enjoyed Privateer 1, Priv 2 is a very similar concept (well duh!), and pretty well done overall. From what I've heard, it's still a heck of a lot better then many of the more recent games that have come out.