My 4 categories are Acting/Cast, Writing, Direction/SFX/Music, Entertainment Value.

Being suspenseful doesn't mean it's good...
Full disclosure: I'm not a fan of the 1st season. I had given it a 4/10.

Acting/Cast: A more recognizable cast this time around. One of my favorite actors is in this season, Yim Si Wan (임시완). I ended up liking his character the most. Actually, I like this season's cast of characters a lot. It's a shame that the the character building was as weak as it was... Everything felt so forced, inauthentic, and rushed. However, the acting is good for the most part (although the writing did hurt it). I would say the main character, played by Lee Jung Jae (이정재), stood out to me as feeling inauthentic with his acting. I liked him in the 1st season though, when he was just an average joe. Now he's trying to be Batman or something. 6/10

Writing: This is the area that really ruins this series for me...and even more so this season. Things happen that just don't make sense logically and psychologically. A huge issue I had with the 1st season is the stupid ass voting system. What are the odds that it would be split 50/50? Can someone do the math on that? Ok...now image those odds happening two more times. It's so dumb. Speaking of dumb, the lead is an idiot. Basically, this season is watching a bunch of people doing every single thing wrong. It's very frustrating. How does the main character get tricked the same exact way? He, of all people, should be the one who should know better. Long story short, this season is a rehashing of the 1st, but done even worse. The shock value of the games is gone, the emotional impact of characters dying is gone, the secondary police officer storyline feels useless, and this season ends abruptly with a cliffhanger. If I would have known that this season wasn't complete, I wouldn't have watched. I would have waited for season 3 (or season 2 part 2). By the way, 3% and The Hunger Games did this plot better. 3% is also a Netflix drama with a similar plot and suspiciously similar scenes and characters. I liked 3% a lot, especially the 1st season, and I can't help but feel like Squid Game is just a poorly executed Korean version. 1/10

Direction/SFX/Music: One thing this drama does right is the cinematography, the SFX, and the iconography (that of which has made Squid Game very marketable). It's nice visually, it's eye-catching, and it makes you want to keep watching. This season had a different vibe from the 1st, however. The 1st season had more of a sense of dread, eeriness, and hopelessness while this season is more...fun? The best way I can describe it, is that it feels like that frozen in bullet time bar scene from the movie The Other Guys. I don't know how to feel about that. 5.5/10

Entertainment Value: So stressful, so frustrating, and then it gets the the point where I'm rolling my eyes at the repetitively bad writing. I can't look away, though. So, I'll give it that. I want to see where they take this story. Also, I'm so glad the VIPs weren't in this season. That was another thing that ruined season 1 for me. The VIPs were terrible...the acting, the dialogue writing...just cringey as hell. I hope they will continue to refrain from torturing me with that mess in season 3 as well. 2/10

Overall, I gave season 2 of Squid Game a 3.5/10. Worse than season 1 in every way except for the more recognizable cast maybe. It is also unfinished, so I wouldn't recommend watching this until season 3 is released. And because it's unfinished, it's harder for me to judge it. 3.5 makes sense for now though, since I had given season 1 a 4 and this season is definitely worse.