I liked the first one better, this feels like a hodge podge of ideas jammed into a tile civilization game. I don't think it does anything particularly well and the story is quite short. I don't get the hype. Regret my purchase.

Nah.
I loved the first Frost Punk (a lot), but the magic is all gone.

The scope has increased, but this has made everything feel much less tactile and relatable.

You don't place buildings anymore, now everything is "districts".
Now, the game is more like Sim City, where you just zone spaces, and an abstracted number of workers just make it happen.. But nothing feels "real" or grounded.

You don't really assign workers in the same way. If you have people, they will usually just get it done, somehow.
In the first game, 10 extra workers would feel like a real boon! (or detriment, depending on the situation).
Not so anymore. You can have a notification that 30 people died of cold during the night, and you won't even notice, or care.

Every resource feels strangely abstracted. More like a fleeting abstract value that needs to be balanced, like electricity in Sim City - rather than coal, steel, wood and food, physically sitting in your stockpile.
Even the heat from the generator feels abstracted away..

It's just zoning and managing spreadsheets.

This game feels more like work than play, lacking the emotional depth and connection that made Frostpunk 1 so compelling.

In the original, most crisis felt personal—each decision carried weight because it affected small figures with names, faces. The devotion, sacrifice, and hope of individuals created a strong sense of connection and made each decision feel meaningful.

but in this game, my the experience revolves around solving one problem after another, with losses and sacrifices reduced to mere numbers and statistics. it feels distant, and there’s little sense of attachment to the society or community I am fighting to save. In fact, I feel more like a logistic manager, than protecting or saving a group of people.

The relentless loop of crisis management, without meaningful narrative breaks or personal stakes, drains the experience of humanity and emotional payoff.