Some corrections are in order in my review:
-There is a time shifting key to make travel on the overmap more tolerable. (It's not unlocked at first but can be unlocked, on a sector basis, under some Challenge conditions.)
-There is a Wanted system in place once you leave the first galaxy so you can't just kill everything anymore. (Unless you want to.)
-Items have few base archetypes but there is quite a lot more variation on the items that I believed.
-You eventually unlock perks and items that make the long dull moments a little less dull.

All in all if my review was an IGN 7 out of 10, after a few more hours of play, I find the game to be a more solid 8 out 10.

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This is a mixed review with a misleading Thumbs Up. 

If I had reviewed the game after a few hours, my review would have been VERY different and much more positive, since the game felt more mysterious and full of possibilities... but that's just not the case. There's a story-on-rail, sequestered and contradictory gaming elements, and very little in the way of standout mechanics or original gaming elements.

The Actual Review:
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Game is a weird mismatch of occasional twitch-based close range action combat combined with a majority of long, meandering, sometimes dull downtimes; the more laid-back auto-turret combat styles from Everspace 1 are turned into gimmicks. 

It combines a vanilla story about our hero who's quite literally the goodest of good boys, Spaaaaace!(TM), and some RPG elements that appear a little more elaborate than Everspace 1 at first glance... but really aren't. By example, once you've seen the 11 primary weapons in the first 2-3 hours of play, you've basically seen 95% of the primary weapons you'll loot in the game. Exact same deal with the ships and most of the rest of the items.

NPCs, allied and enemies, have no life in them or autonomy of any kind, so you might as well be invisible to them until you blow them up. While going on slaughters against the innocents and their buildings have no consequences. Not a problem in a vacuum, at all; easy to see it as a "plus" actually in some ways... I just mention to emphasize the lack of any real RPG behind the hood.
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End of Actual Review.

You can ignore much of the fluff and slow elements, but it doesn't seem to be meant to be ignored, and it does beg the question why this fluff exists in the first place. I'll also note, for good measure, that the travel between planets in particular is a complete and utter waste of time for everyone who had to code it to anyone who has to endure it, breaking the game flow and having absolutely no redeeming value whatsoever. The random events that happen on it are so frequent and repetitive they could just as well have been a percentage-based pop-up.

I'm particularly bitter about manually flying to another solar system and seeing it didn't exist when I reached it, or that nothing at all happened on my way there and back. No "space monsters" lurking in the darkness, or escaping the sandbox, so to speak... just a boring mostly 2D plane in a self-contained instance, after all.

I find the game OK; an IGN 7 out of 10 so to speak. It's nothing like Everspace 1. I'm not having nearly as much fun as Everspace 1, but I played about 25 hours, and I'm still in the first galaxy; I'd say if I play it through, I'll have about 75 hours of gametime playing the game and most of its content, maybe more if I can manage to Get Good(TM) . So clearly, it's not bad either. There's meat there, and it's somewhat more polished and involved than its predecessor.

I had a completely different review, and I've modified it like this:

I still cannot recommend this game, though it's not as bad as I first believed, it still suffers from a host of issues, primary in my mind is the lack of a THROTTLE. If you release the forward movement, your ship stops. Further, the ship is ungodly slow, requiring a constant use of the Cruise or Afterburner to get anywhere. (these aren't X-Wings or Terran Space Superiority fighters from X-Beyond the Frontier0. This is a space shoot-em up along the lines of Freelancer, without the stilted dialogue or the fun voice over work of Bruce Campbell in Tachyon: The Fringe. At least those games had speed matching or a throttle.

My previous review talked about wave attacks, and that still stands. It's pretty easy to get stuck inside a furball and get annihilated by swarming drones and light fighters, forcing one to kite, kill, grab a couple more, kite and kill, rinse and repeat. While combat is fun, for the most part, it's the most tiresome and tedious part of this game.

So, if this game is on sale, like when I bought it, you may find it of value. If not, there are other things that can occupy your time and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.

I really wanted to like Everspace 2, but it just didnt click for me. The game feels shallow in a lot of ways. For example, you never see ships docking or undocking, which might not sound like a big deal, but it makes the world feel kind of lifeless. There’s no real sense of being part of a living, breathing universe it’s just... there.

The gameplay loop is where it really falls flat. You’re basically doing the same thing over and over—fight, loot, upgrade, repeat. It gets old fast, and there’s not much variety to keep it interesting.

The one thing that kept me going was the story. It’s decent, and I wanted to see where it went, but honestly, without that, I don’t think I would’ve stuck wth it.