Metroid 2 is a huge improvment over the original in almost every way, but it is still far from perfect.
When I got this game it was used and I accidentily started playing on the file of the person that owned it before me. So, unknown to me, I started playing somewhere in the middle of the game. I was completely confused and just ended up wandering around the world for hours aimlessly. This was when I started thinking it was too hard, and boring like the first game. Then I somehow realized that I had started halfway through, erased the file, and started at the beginning. Once again I got lost and confused and ended up putting the game down for a month or two. I then started at the beginning again, and for some weird reason, I was no longer lost and confused, and I beat the game in about 4 hours. It was really weird. When I played before I would go through tunnels of lava hoping I would come to a new area before dying, and it acually worked alot of the time. I think I had unknowingly sequence breaked the game. I wasn't actually suppossed to do that because I was suppossed to kill a certain amount of Metroids in order to lower the lava level but the first time I played I couldnt find them so I went through the lava, and for the some reason the second time I played I found the Metroids quite easily. I hope that is clear now, I realize that I am really not the best at explaining things. Anyway, know that I have told my strange story I will get to the actual review part.
Like I said Metroid 2 is a huge improvment over the original in almost every way. Unfortunately the music in this one isn't as good as the cool, catchy, and sometimes creepy music of the original. It sounds like it trys, but ends up sounding kind of silly. Also the graphics arn't really any better or worse, but they still do there job, and Samus looks cooler. Another gripe is that the game is completly devoid of story, but whatever.
But the gameplay is where it really improves. First of all you can crouch in this game. Also It is not impossibly hard anymore (although it was maybe a little easy, at least on my second go around.) It still isn't the most exciting game ever since, there is a lot of cavern crawling and slow stupid enemy shooting, but the environments are definently more interesting (although not very diverse) and there are many many boss battles. The reason for this is that the whole point of the game is to kill the bosses which are different types of Metroids. Altogether there are about 30 Metroids which get progressivly harder as you get further in the game. The bosses are quite fun especcially the final one. The regular Grunt enemies arn't particularly exciting (they just sort of crawl around aimlessly) but whatever. Also, there are a lot of cool new powerups in this game. Overall the game is just more fun and compelling and a lot less frustrating then the original. The length of the game is kind of hard to say. The game won't last very long if you get the hang of it quickly like I did the second time I played it. It only took about 4 hours. But if you get lost and confused like I did the first time I played it, then it will last much longer. It really depends. There are quite a few extra powerups to find for the completionist, but you probably wont need every single one to beat the game. If you like to find 100% items then that will add a little to value I suppose. Overall, Metroid 2 is a fun game that is much better then the original, and if you are a Metroid fan you should definintly play it.