I liked the first game a bit more from story/characters perspective. It has more heart, even though it goes overboard with the satire (but that has its own charm too). Second game has much better gameplay (though changes are still rather incremental) and interesting factions. Planets/areas are better designed too, though still far from what other games have (exploration aspect was the weakest part of TOW1 and the second game is only somewhat better). But the main story and characters are not as good as in the first one.