nightcraw1er.488: Wow. A good looking game, and at a good price. What is the catch? I have to say I haven't played the first, but at that price...
I really liked it to be honest. I enjoyed the first game more, but this one addresses some of the "problems" of the first. It's a bit more linear and there's less freedom than in the first game (which some people actually liked). And the text quests didn't have quite the impact.
But for a fun real time battle game that has a nice overworld turnbased aspect the game really is a lot of fun. And the learning curve is less steep than in the first game. It restricts the number of armies you can have and the map opens up more slowly so you're not bombarded with unit distribution. Personally, I found it fun (in the first game) to try and figure out how to best allocate my armies and heroes, but a lot of people bitched because it was possible to get STOMPED if you stretched yourself too thin too early, or didn't know when to garrison what you had and when to send out scouting parties. In the second game you don't have to worry about that as much.
I encountered one bug that prevented me from continuing but I found a patch pretty quickly and it addressed the problem. And I had no technical issues when I played the game like 5 years ago or so on my i5 with a... 460 I think? Maybe a bit of stuttering at times when zoomed in, but the game was certainly playable and I was never annoyed.
I'd say grab it if you're on the fence - I'm a fan of the series so I'm a bit biased. But if it looks the least bit interesting to you at under 4 quid it'd call it a pretty easy pickup and have no qualms recommending the game.