Enjoyable movie that continued from the first

Rating: 9/10 (7 May 2017)

There are a few minor spoilers. I will try to not have many.
So I got to see the movie over the first weekend and this is what I got out of it:
1. Fun special effects - like what others have said there was a lot of color and interesting effects throughout the movie. They took a lot of the similar effects from Dr. Strange and put them in (making the universe more connected).
2. Nebula, Yondu, Drax - You got a lot more back story of all these characters. It was great to see why Yondu was an outlaw ravager and why Nebula had such hate for Gamora. It also set up for the infinity gauntlet story where in the comic Nebula was VERY important so I wonder if they movies are also going that way. Drax was very interesting to me. You got to see his softer side, him becoming more fun, and his willingness to protect others and family. I though DB played Drax very well and he stole a lot of scenes from the others.
3. Better bad guy - I liked having Ego as the "bad guy". Instead of being bad he was just well Egotistic. His Ego is what drove him and not something more evil. I liked that. Now the Sovereign race I did not like. They were killing them just because they wanted to kill them. That whole story line was too throw away. The Outlaw Ravagers also were 'mehhh' as they only setup the redemption of Yondu. If they somehow combined the Sovereign and Outlaw Ravagers into a single enemy it might of been better. I really don't think they were needed.
4. Soundtrack - Being from the 70s-80s I loved the music. The combination of music and action in scenes were very well put together. The opening scene with Mr. Blue Sky from ELO was excellent.
5. Lots of emotions - They really were working on many different emotions that could affect many different people in different ways. Like one of my friends had a older brother and had a similar relationship to what Nebula and Gamora had. They had just opened up about 2 months ago and so this part of the movie really affected him. It was good seeing a movie affect people in different ways.
6. Too many characters, too little time - like with any movie there is only so much screen time you can devote to characters. Sometimes it felt jumpy because they kept going from one character to another.
7. Still setting up the next movies - Just like the comic books the movies are in that trap of always setting up the next so that you get the next comic and see what happens. No true ending like a Soap Opera.
Overall I really enjoyed the movie. It had a lot of what was in the first movie but improved on some things. if you had never seen the first movie I think this movie would of been even better because it would of been a surprise but since we know all the characters and the director we were more entertained instead of surprised (which is what I see a lot of critics are saying). I do think this is a better movie then the first (I think the villain was better, the story was better, and connected more with the audience).