I took the plunge, bit the bullet, and even bought the game. I took advantage of the 10% discount, and I had another 10% discount that I used. So I got the game for $39.99.
I haven't played AOT1 for a long time, so I spent a few minutes with the tutorials. I looked at the Academy to see what was new. There are 201 players that have been uploaded in the last month, and 23 venues. It's hard me to tell whether they were created with AOT2 tools, but it's likely. There's also something called Player Lists. The problem is you have to download a list to know who's in it.
I went straight into a career. I didn't spend a lot of time creating myself, so I couldn't say what's new there. I wanted to get to playing the match.
It certainly seems as if the rallies are more varied in the shots that are played by the AI than in AOT1. I started as an amateur (second level up), but I played too wildly, thinking that I could just resume from where I left off in AOT1. I was soon 0-5 down, but then played more carefully, and won the next two games. That's all I had time for. When I've played some more, I'll up the difficulty.
I'm enjoying the game so far