Story -
The story in Saint's Row two is about as non original as it can get. That's not to say the story wouldn't have been original last game, but they basically did it already. The only difference is you start a bit lower then you did in the first game. You play as any old character you want (I opted to make him as girly and feminine as possible in a pink dress, jacked up to full muscle and a womens voice) and break out of jail with some idiot you never see again.
As soon as you're out of jail shit gets real. The Saint's are broken up and it's up to you to try to get your way back into the loop of things. Let's start easily here and attempt to explain what happened. Since most of the world has played the first Saint's Row lets try to explain what's going on:
In the first Saint's Row Julius used a mute with a creepily fast matabolism (ie YOU) to take over a city as he sat behind the scenes. When you officially own the city as Julius' second you are on a boat (for some reason I'm not a hundred percent able to remember) and the boat explodes. You make it off and starts Saint's Row Two. You take over the same character "Two years and 31 days" after the original (but who's counting) yet somehow through magic your entire appearance has changed while you were in that coma. The Saint's are destroyed, Julius is missing and it's up to you to bring them back together from the rival gang.
In short its the same story as the last game with not a single thing but some details changed, except for the small magic element it has. For a game that's so close to realism to have a random part in it when you fight a voodoo priest who can Neo style stop bullets and control a floating voodoo doll (while an awesome fight) felt forced in and fake. But that's besides the point. The story is not original at all, the first game did it and did it original, Saint's Two literally copy and pasted the story with only a few changes.
Characterization-
The characters in Saint's 1 were 3 cardboard boxes, a DEAD cardboard box and Julius. In the second game we have a familiar cardboard box returned (Johnny Gat who's entire character is just being a gun toting idiot, as proved when he tells the enemy gang he won't fire a shot at the funeral and the second the cut scene ends he opens fire) Julius, a cardboard box with a nice suit (Ultor) and you.
Yes in this game you actually have a voice and can speak. And boy do you speak A LOT. These people can't shut you up. Now that's not to say you don't have some funny dialogue but most of the talking could have been either more badass or not used at all, since it's about as worthwhile to talk in this game as it was in the last game and that is not very.
In the last game you could get through the entire story only talking once or twice the entire game, I beleive a total of 4 times. In this game you are thrust into the world as a talkative sport, with one of your lines being "That mute shit is over." Anyway like the first game many cutscenes could be taken up by your mute ass and nothing else, but the developers seemed to want to use the most of their expensive new studio (I'm thinking) and do ten billion lines.
However I complain about the uselessness of a character talking that doesn't need to is a worthless review. He/She talks no matter what I say or do about it, but it's a good kind of talking. When you look past the fact the talking was shoehorned in and look past the fact most of the voices are stereotypical (and look past the fact there is an asain preset but no asain accent?) then you can find the dialogue sometimes funny, but most of the times expected and bland.
Gameplay-
If anyone tells you that GTA4s gameplay was the be all end all of gameplay they have their head's shoved so far up their ass they've reverted back to a single celled organizm. GTA was not perfect and Saint's realizes that. Saint's 1 was a tiny bit shit with the gameplay, with gltiches up the ass. And many things people would do for fun (ie stand on top of a car cause you are basically glued to the bloody things) has become a fun little mini game.
In GTA the cars drove very unrealistically. I recently got my drivers license and can now drive a car so, doey eyed and with a smile stretched upon my face I sat in a car and started to drive it. Now unlike in GTA4 a sharp wind will not make me spin out for an hour, now that's not to say that like in Saint's Two I can sly four hundred feet on my roof, flip over and keep driving. But I digress. Saint's Two's handling towards cars in general is something I wanted to touch on, because it's far more realistic than GTA. I can drive in GTA very easily, I'm not bad, but that's not what I'm getting at. I'm getting at realism in driving isn't fun! Saint's is fun because it's not realistic its fun to drive 10 billion miles an hour on your bike and still control it or drive for a mile and make a 90 degree turn BECAUSE of the fact it's so unrealistic!
In GTA4 the rockets would take a realistic trip and curve in a billion different directions and miss the target unless it was an inch in front of you. In Saint's you shoot a rocket and like a bullet it flies straight, which is much better because you can HIT THINGS! Which I tend to like to do!
Let me go away from both comparisons and gameplay for a second to explain exactly WHY I am making so many GTA references. It seems now a days the only thing a person can do is say "GTA clone" and that's just not true anymore. Sure games try to be like gta up the ass and its not a bad thing, but don't try too hard. GTA did a lot of things right and equally as many things wrong, and Saint's is just like that. People will call Saint's a GTA clone until their tongues fall and whether its true or not you can't look at it like that.
GTA is set to a realistic backtone and for the most part does it very good. Some things don't work, some things do. It's tricky to make something that works as good as you want when its finally done. Let's make it real is a great concept to the average gamer but it never works out quite right. From what I've seen Saint's doesn't try to be real, but instead goes for a realistic setting to instate unrealistic graphics and violence. Because I don't care what you say but no city on earth has 18 pimps jump you at once all dressed the same while two of them jump a business man in the background.
Final Thoughts-
You may disagree with what I have said about Saint's Row Two. You may think it's the worst or the best game ever made. Everyone has mixed opinions and I can give you mine. In short, and compiled into one sentance: "Saint's Row Two is a fun game, but bland." Bland story and characters, but fun to play and a character design through the roof.
Now giving something a score from 1 to 10 is never something I enjoy doing. I find it difficult to put my feelings on a game into a numerical score, because I always feel like if I enjoyed it I should put it high regardless of flaws. Normally I put game scores higher than I should because I spent my money on these games and that means a lot to me so I try to like them regardless of flaws. However I know most people out there (and most people who are willing to sit through and read an actual review) cling to numerical scores like a babe to their mommies.
So in final: 7.5