I was enjoying the tweaks to the combat, the expansion on ideas from the setting, and some of the character dynamics, but then the game asked me to do every side quest in the game to be able to continue. In the end, I think the new story only works as a band aid towards the larger problems of original story and still has problems around how it addresses the Blade race.
XB:FC > XB > XB2:T-tGC > XB2