Soooooo much better this time around! yea! Battlefront 2 is superior in almost every way over the original.
this time around though the vehicle work was streamlined, and i see a lot of pandemic influence ala-mercenaries in the design style. i've only spent a few hours with this frenetic pile of blasters, bombs, and jedi...but i'm already sold. everything they did this time around is better. i've heard rumors about some nasty online glitches but i play offline only so no harm to me.
if you do venture online though look up g4tv.com's x-play review of the game. adam cessler has some interesting points to make.
that said i'm particularly impressed by the campaign and galactic conquest modes! until empire at war gets a decent console port this is as close as one can come to being in the movies. It's sweet!