A simplistic experience in disguise
True, Fable2 expands on a lot of elements that were only sketched in the first episod and introduces a few novelties (e.g., the dog). However, at the end of the day, none of them really matter... That is mainly caused by an absolutely cliched, irrelevant story and characters, an overall unbalance of many of the game's elements, such as its internal economy, difficulty level and the sense that non of the elements is fully fleshed out.
The story is absolutely forgettable... evil wizard trying to conquer the world. All you do in the game is extremely loosely tied to the story and the in-game storytelling attempts are badly realized and boring. Characters go from the absolutely irrelevant to the RPC-cliche' to the straight annoying and dialogues are nothing you want to spend more than 15 seconds listening to. Missions are varied in their description, but end up being a go-to-somewhere/kill monsters/come back type of affairs most of the times.
The sceneries are also pretty repetitive... you pretty much have 1) the town 2) the countryside 3) The dungeon. Same goes with the monsters, of few varieties and all already seen in other games. Absence of boss fights is pretty staggering, and the absence of a final game boss fight is even more so.
The game is also extremely easy, mainly due to the fact that you cannot die. You basically plow through it, you get killed, you respawn 5 seconds later, continue until you are done.
The combat system is fun and satisfying at first but gets repetitive quickly. Given the overabundance of currency in your pockets you get very good weapons very soon, so no enemy is areal challenge. And the fact you cannot die makes it all irrelevant anyway. You also have a wide variety of spells, but you really need just a couple, the rest doesn't really make a difference.
The "social" aspects are very poorly implemented... lots of good ideas, but most of them miss the mark. I found the expression-based communication system retarded and the fact people get to love you or hate you doesn't really have any significant impact on the gameplay. At the end of the day you are immortal and you have way more cash than you'll ever need so the fact somebody has a little sad face icon on his/her head is not really a big deal. NPCs (including your wife if you get one) are dumb, repeat the same 4-5 sentences and behave like idiots: you can shoot them and then kiss them and they will love you again. You never get a feel for a living breathing environment and no sense of connection to it, which makes all the social interactions pointless.
As I mentioned before, the whole economic aspect of the game doesn't work, since there is no real strategic trade-off to be made. Once you get into a job a max it, you get so much cash that you can buy yourself the best equipment and a couple of real estates to generate all the cash you need for the rest of the game. Yes, you can run around town and cause a ruckus, so that the local economy will take a hit but in the grand scheme of things... it doesn't matter.
Graphics are nice, especially when it comes to background art. Characters models are well realized even though I am not in love with the art style. Animations are OK but can get a bit quirky and imprecise especially during combat. Other issue I had is with total lack of interactivity with the gameworld. This ain't no Elder Scrolls for sure!
Bottom line, even if a lot of little details, activities and nuances have been introduced since the first game, no one is really compelling enough to make you care. Nothing really matters in this game. Button mashing does.