Storyline was very predictable, overall boring, and safe for the company to stand behind. The plot on paper works fine and there were some pretty intriguing aspects of the venom storyline that I enjoyed quite a bit, but it suffers from the current Disney-fied Marvel movies, in that lots of references are made to the comics with some twists that still stay faithful to the original content overall but fails to deliver any depth to the characters involved; while Kraven's motives do become clear over the course of the game, his depiction and 'army of goons' comes off very generic and nothing gets fleshed out. We miss out on all the internal conflicts and machinations that made Doc Ock a compelling villain. Other characters are displayed at the barest minimum to further the plot without really exploring their worlds or feeling very included; this is especially evident with Miles. Miles ends up finishing the main story fighting Venom alone, but the whole moment falls flat as they really have nothing to fight over, the characters themselves never actually interacted with each other until that final fight, save for one conversion over phone. All the bad boring bits are still here, the science side quests feel even more boring as they don't encapsulate any aspect of Spider-man nor Parker this time around. Even the spider-bot doesn't have spider mechanics (except for a web shooter) instead of crawling around walls and ceilings to observe areas, they gave it an Iron Man booster pack. The MJ/alter-ego sequences are back and even worse than before; someone thought giving MJ a web-shooting taser gun would shake things up but it made her section even less intriguing as there was no danger anymore or need for stealth really as you can run up and finish each enemy one-by-one in most of her segments. I was looking forward to the start of a great Spider team launching, instead Miles ends up being locked up in his room or looking for musical instruments while Peter tries to save his old enemies and best friend all on his own. I get the story was supposed to explore his shortcomings to highlight how the symbiote could corrupt him further but it felt like more Disney-themed lazy-ass writing to push the plot along. Character choices seem to completely contradict previous statements and/or beliefs in the characters (at times, literally right after said statements or beliefs are expressed by the character) so the overall plot feels forced and hurried. Also, it makes zero sense to have Peter literally become the cure for the symbiote invasion (he actually gets an anti-venom symbiote suit) and then not have him be the integral piece to stop Venom, instead Miles literally comes out of no where after Peter is conveniently knocked unconscious by a blow so Miles can get the limelight in the final battle.

The two Spider-Men start in a really good dynamic, with each one showcasing their styles and strengths in the first fight with Sandman, unfortunately, Insomniac never take things to the next level, instead of creating a dynamic by developing unique mechanics or skills for each Spider-Man, they both feel roughly the same, save for their finishers and voice actors in combat.

Improvements: the game has greatly improved in terms of performance, from the size of the city, keeping steady performance while swinging or zipping through the city does feel better. While the size of the map increased, the overall size of the game while you run through the story feels like it scaled down. There isn't much in terms of simulating life in the city, just more buildings.

The inclusion of the web glider seemed amazing at first but didn't really add to the traversal of the city, instead it competed with web slinging it felt after a time. There are several wind currents that you can ride on while gliding to travel without having to web swing at all and whereas it is a far more efficient traversal mode, it takes away from the experience of being your friendly neighborhood web slinger.

This is the biggest issue with the game; many new mechanics are introduced and are stable but don't mix well with existing gameplay. Gliding versus swinging instead of blending the two for a more dynamic experience. There is a new counter mechanic in combat, designed to break up the previous mechanics of punching and dodging; overall that works for Miles as he has venom and it feels right there but not for Peter. Combat has been streamlined and overall works better than in the original but does not add to the experience of being Spider-man. With limited gadgets here (only 4 total in the entire game) and special moves, I feel less like Spider-man and more like Iron Man or a member of the X-Men.

Side quests are really where this game falls over completely. None of the required/tutorial side quests are fun at all. All of them force the play into the most confined rails system I've ever seen in a game. Forget trying to figure any puzzle out; the game has one solution for each puzzle and that solution always requires you to stand in a single, specified location and use the pre-approved mechanic to interact with the components. Combat has been improved, but at the sacrifice of any interesting side puzzles to break-up the gameplay. I still need to finish all the optional content so I'm hoping the non-showcase content will have something worthwhile there.

I'd say its a solid superhero game that could have benefit from creating more complex and interesting side characters to interact with but the one-dimensional writing of most characters involved causes the game to suffer and the inclusion of generic puzzle and combat gameplay mechanics makes the game feel like a downgrade from the 2018 release.

Maybe the next one will actually build off of the mechanics introduced in this one to make gameplay more dynamic and worth having the additional superheroes in it, but for now this game is just a wasted opportunity. Doubt I'd be willing to spend money on the sequel.