I played it for a while last night, and I have to say that the game looks a lot better than the first, and its definitely one of the best looking Gamecube games available.
Unfortunately, it feels way too much like the first game, as a lot of the environments look similar to the first one (only they look better and theres more detail in them). Scanning things is also a pain because now you have to press the start button to bring up the full info and then again to get rid of it.
I can't really complain because it doesn't do anything to make the game worse than the first, it just doesn't seem to do much to advance the first game either. Its still a great game and Im not that disapointed with it (and it could get better as the game progresses..Im only at the 2nd boss)..but I was kind of expecting more from it.