I just beat this and it was pretty good. The first game was still my favorite because Lee, Clem, and Kenny were a better trio. As you can tell from the trailer, Clem is an NPC in this game. You're Javier, basically a upstart baseball player that pulled a Pete Rose before he got big. It's not as mysterious and dark as Lee's past. The characters are hit and miss that come along and enter your group. I will say there is more twisted decisions to make in this game. The story does a good job of steering you in feel a certain way, only to make you feel bad that you chose to do a certain thing later on... but at the same time not want to try and take it back.
This game follows the 5 chapter format like Season 2 did. I still feel like the base first game felt significantly longer than both. Season 2's decisions still play into the story, and are given to you in a series of well placed flashbacks that bridge the two games together. Although I think these flashbacks also made the game feel shorter, because every chapter featured them. Sometimes they were Clem's, sometimes they were Javier's. So in a six segment chapter, one segment was always a flashback rather than the current events at hand. This made the game feel even shorter than Season 2, and in some parts it was. Some chapters were 1 hour and 15-30 min rather than the full +2 hours Season 2's chapters were. Plus the ending was pretty conclusive, and the finale was kinda anticlimatic. Still I enjoyed the experience. I'll def get the DLC.
My biggest gripe is they still like to throw in a QTE near middle to almost end that is brand new and no where else before and after in the game just to make sure you die at least once. I mean that has to take extra work to code in a mechanic that only is used once.