Definitely doesn’t measure up to the first game and leaves the overall lore in a complicated spot. I think the vigours are close to useless, considering that most of the heavy lifting is done by using guns. On my last playthrough (probably was when I was 15, so 5 years ago…) I hadn’t even upgraded any of mine until the very end, and there were no repercussions.

The worldbuilding is wildly problematic in how it handles its concepts. It becomes glaringly obvious how hollow its message (or lack thereof) will be at basically the start of game. It portrays the horror of America’s white supremacist colonialism and jingoism, but doesn’t do any more than that. Moreover, Booker and Elizabeth being direct players in the perpetuation of these evils and the portrayal of the Vox Populi as being in the wrong too leads the game to be less of a critique of these realities and actually just a tonally abhorrent centrist nightmare.