A great second-helping to the original STALKER, with refinements abound.
One major success in this game was the connection between it and the original STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl. Upon liberating an army base for a faction, I now understood why that faction occupied a seemingly out in the middle of nowhere base in the original. Imagine that; a prequel that explains the original. Still, being able to witness all of the tie-ins was a fun connection.
The firefights seemed to be toned down a bit from the first one. While I was not used to the enemies hurling grenades at you with pin-point accuracy, the battles definitely seemed easier to accomplish.
I also loved the new artifact-finding. No longer were they just out in the open, ready to be picked up. No, you had to get a good detector and manually track them down through anomalies.
I didn't like the ability to see an enemy on my radar from a mile away... literally. I'm guessing that this is one of the refinements made to hopefully bring in the more casual crowd in that the feature makes the game easier. Then again, I can't see the casual crowd gravitating towards any of the STALKER games in the first place.
Overall, this was an improvement on the original, and I hope Call of Pripryat continues in this direction.