Obviously written with consoles rather than PC's in mind.
FarCry (to start with) was exclusively a PC title at first, and it showed. FarCry 2 appears to have focussed on the console market, and it also shows.
While this game certainly has some of the nice features that FarCry did -- like dense foliage in places, large gameplay areas, and a reasonably open world, it's also lacking things that FarCry had.
The first thing that's lacking is the game engine. The engine in use in FarCry 2 was not written by CryTek (the developers of the original FarCry, and CrySis). Some of the original code may have been used, but it's mostly been rewritte -- and it shows. The graphics in this game are reasonably good, but they lack the polish, the depth, and the obviously advanced technology that is so evident in the CryTek engines. It makes it appear that the engine was written by developers attempting to imitate what the CryTek engines do, but not quite succeeding.
There are other differences as well. You can crouch, but there is no way to go prone. You cannot lean left/right, so you cannot shoot around objects form behind cover. The weapons also do not have multiple fire modes, so you're stuck with whatever the default fire mode (auto, single shot, burst fire) is hard coded into the weapons.
Remapping the controls for the game is also a problem. For example if you remap the "Reload" key to something -- for example backspace -- the in-game tutorials cannot detect it, and you end up with a message on the screen saying something like "Press the key to change the scale of the map." Or you can remap the "use" key from "e" to something else, but you end up getting stuck in things like mounted machine guns (in vehicles or on the ground) until you press the "e" key, rather than what you've mapped it to.
There also feels like a distinct lack of available actions that you can customise the controls for. The controls in this game seem more like the controls in RainBow 6: Vegas than the original FarCry, or CrySis, and they're very obviously geared toward console gamepads.
One final difference is that FarCry 2 appears to have unlimited quicksave capability, which significantly reduces the difficulty level. On the original, you were forced to rely on auto-saves and a limited number of quick-saves, and this added to the intensity of the game. Allowing unlimited quicksaves at any time simply removes the element of risk and takes a lot of the tension out of the game.
There are good points in this game, however.
The gameplay is fun, and can be quite action packed.
An enormous map allows you plenty of room to move around and explore.
While the graphics in the game are not up to the standard of those in games produced by CryTek, they are quite good.
On high to medium range hardware, the game runs fairly well at "High" level graphics settings and generally averages between 30 - 35 FPS.
The part of the game involving making contacts or acquiring "buddies" adds some interesting features to the play.
Armouries allow you unlimited replacements, once you've paid for particular type of weapon (depending on personal preferences, this can be good or bad).
Finally, the terrain is varied and interesting, and makes for a lot of fun to explore.