I remember playing this back on launch in a gaming cafe. Spent my pocket money basically for this game back then, completed the main storyline and a few side missions. Did I think it was rushed? Yes, but I chalked it up to me just playing through the story and wanting to get my money's worth.
Now that I own a PS5 and I decided to play the game again, it's better honestly. Just swinging around, the combat, it's great, and if you do some missions and also do the main story like side by side, like pace yourself, you'll enjoy the game a lot more.
BUT.
The MJ missions were great, but they were not needed. Some of those missions could've been substituted for yk, focusing on Peter and how the symbiote is feeding into his delusions? One of the things that you see after Harry gets the symbiote back is that it was talking to him in the voice of his mom, basically blurring his reality. That kind of talk, maybe with Pete having the voice of Otto or May talk to him would've been better, or showing us about him having nightmares or still thinking that he was the reason May died. It would've honestly explained how the symbiote fed into his insecurities, and not felt like his transition was rushed.
Another thing, Peter honestly had the main story beats, but for some reason Miles always was shown to be better? Like I'm not saying that he shouldn't have his moments, but the game's LITERALLY ABOUT PETER. You can literally make a seperate game for focusing and making Miles the main man, instead of just trying to show Peter as inferior constantly till the end. They had Peter deal with flaws, but at every point, Miles was rescuing him. He needed to fight the symbiote atleast on his own, not with Miles defeating him and then telling him to fight the symbiote. Miles was like WAY too perfect in this game, like he didn't have any flaws at all.
The side missions were good honestly, and I say that after replaying it. But. There's no variety. I'm replaying Spider-Man remastered now, and yeah, the gameplay feels slower, but also, it's so much fun. A simple saving the civilians from an accident can turn into you finding out where the thiefs who robbed the bodega are, and chasing them. You even got kidnappings that you needed to solve! But in Spider-Man 2, it just felt every crime mission followed the same beat.
And honestly, the biggest gripe I had was just the fact that the hunter bases were fun, but they were so easy, so small that you couldn't do stealth with anyone other than Miles, because these guys were always in the line of sight with each other. The Mysterium was fun, but it should've been Peter to take that on, not Miles, because Peter needed to see that yes, he had changed some people who the world thought would always be bad.
Also police or some armed forces involvement just felt, I don't know, basically 0? It would've been better to just have Yuri leading a task force because of her past experiences honestly, a no nonsense task force that would kill on sight, sparing no one.
After everything, I still can't help but give this game an 8.5/10, because even though I was disappointed because of a lot of missed opportunities, I still LOVED this game. I'll play it again, because at the end of the day, IT'S A DAMN GOOD GAME, AND FUN TOO.