TLDR: I only really recommend it if you're playing it out of some kind of historical interest, otherwise, games have come a long way in 25 years - so play the Witcher 3 or Baldur's Gate 3 instead. Of particular note though - as Bioware's second crpg, this game influenced the entire genre for decades, especially in the area of companion characters having their own personalities/stories and forming a relationship with the Player Character. BG2 was the first game of this type where you could have a romantic relationship with one of your party, I believe. If you played Baldur's Gate 3, and want to know if you should play BG2, I'd say start with BG1:EE and see how you go, maybe crank the difficulty down a bit.

I pre-ordered the Collectors Edition of BG2, played it on release in 2000, and fell in love with it for the longest time. Being able to continue the adventures of the character that had fought through BG1, seeing her in a new massive location, learning powerful new spells as she became an archmage was amazing. The expansion - Throne of Bhaal, ends the story of the character you created in BG1, was released in 2001 and is built into this Enhanced Edition that was released in 2013.

I've played the whole thing through only twice, once in 2000-2001, and again in 2024, to revisit before playing Baldur's Gate 3. That 24 year gap meant I'm a little vague on what the Enhanced Edition has added, other than the extra characters; Neera the Wild Mage, Rasaad the Monk and Dorn II-Khan who continue their stories from the Enhanced Edition of BG1. There were also 2 new characters that only seemed to arrive in BG2:EE, Hexxat the Thief, and Wilson the Bear. Each new character has their own questline, that all include brand new locations as well. I used Hexxat, Rasaad and Neera, but only Neera stuck around until the final scene. I also failed to romance Neera, because I think I picked a single wrong conversation option, which is a bit lame, but very true to how romances worked in the original BG2. Hexxat left because I was too nice, and she's evil, and Rasaad left as part of his story and never returned, (this may of been because of options I chose).

BG2:EE essentially continues from the end of BG:EE. You are imprisoned by the Hooded Figure that appears in the Siege of Dragonspear, and have to fight your way free with other prisoners you meet on the way out. You're then freed to explore the city of Athkatla, the huge capital city of Amn, (a nation south of Baldur's Gate, but on the same coast line).
After some initial conflicts / meetings, you can then explore certain locations within Amn, and the very epic storyline takes you to some famous locales and encounters with famous characters and creatures.

Throne of Bhaal - the expansion, then continues the storyline to even more epic heights, ending with a final battle to reject or reclaim the heritage your character learnt of in the original Baldur's Gate.

It's a great story, possibly second only to Planescape: Torment in the Infinity Engine game series. The music is really good, the hand painted backgrounds are still beautiful. The character sprites and animations don't really hold up over 20 years later, the voice acting is good, but limited to major characters, and not all dialogue, the spell effects are - fine, I guess. The mechanics are pretty closely tied to 2nd Edition D&D, which was fairly esoteric, and the game doesn't do an amazing job of explaining some systems. There is a great Wiki, which does explain pretty much all of the mechanics, (what each spell actually does and so forth), and also provides some guides for some of the more complex battles in the game.
(Most of the hard battles are optional, but give you great items if you win).

I did notice that BG2:EE and the ToB part in particular are very heavy on high level Mage opponents, which I at least found a little frustrating, as you seem to need to have your own Mages strip away magical defences before you can hurt the enemy Mages, so a lot of battles become a magical duel between your party's Mages and the enemy one, and any enemy not immune to magic is usually just evaporated in the crossfire. This may have been specific to my play style, but you've been warned.

I came across two bugs, one of which I think was caused by an item in BG:EE changing my characters alignment, and then importing that character into BG2:EE. This meant a quest series that was specific to my class, (Cleric), that was altered depending on alignment failed to trigger correctly. I was able to advance the quest using a console command which solved it. (This was an obscure bug that I didn't find anyone else had experienced, because you need to have hit a bug in BG:EE where the Helm of Alignment change permanently changes your alignment, instead of reversing when you take it off. Then import the character in BG2:EE and also be a Cleric).

The second bug was a common one where an NPC I needed to turn a quest into had been killed by random monsters spawning from an unrelated event. Arguably not even a bug, but it did break a quest, so I used the console commands again to respawn the NPC and continue the quest. (A quick online search found the required command).

In summary, probably one of the greatest CRPGs of all time, although it had quite an impact on me in 2000, I had not yet played Planescape: Torment, which although less massive, has a even more impactful story, even more amazing music and very memorable characters. Still, these games are over 20 years old, and the stories which while great at the time, don't really compare to more modern masterpieces like the Witcher 3 or Baldur's Gate 3. Also the gameplay mechanics are obtuse, as the older D&D rulesets were not great, and have been refined a great deal in the 5th Ed ruleset used in BG3.

Should a BG3 enjoyer play BG2? Maybe? There is more in common than people might think, the exploration and character interactions are actually pretty similar. Although, 2nd Ed D&D didn't have the whole concept of "skills" so those iconic D20 rolls in conversations are missing. The combat is quite different, as BG3 used D&D's turn based system, while BG2 uses a Real Time with Pause system where turns kinda flow past and you can pause at will. The mechanics are harder to understand, and a lot of the 2nd Ed D&D rules are strange, but if you run into trouble just turn the difficulty down a notch or two. Maybe even start with BG1, as you'll get to start at level 1 and you'll have met a lot of the characters that follow you into BG2.

One of the best games of all time. Simple.

I have played a lot of classic cRPGs but man this game makes me feel stupid, or I'm just being old and impatient. That’s what I tell myself anyway.