I never played the original, infact, I've never played a Divinity game at all before now.
I am a couple of hours into the PS4 version, and am very impressed with what I've seen so far, for once the UI and visibility of things on screen are actually good on console, too many releases seem to forget that sitting on the couch and playing a game requires a different style and look of UI, and get it wrong (I'm looking at you W3 and Wasteland), this doesn't it's really slick.
Love the graphics, love the performance, audio is great, voice acting is some of the best I've heard in a while.
Gameplay is great, combat seems simple, but with a lot of complexity if you want it, as is the crafting system, I wasn't expecting as much in the way of puzzles as I've seen so far, I guess I expected a straight turn based ARPG, but it's more than that, I also think the interplay between the protags actually makes having a partner quite a worthwhile thing, the arguments and the RPS thing all add another level to things.
The writing is brilliant, some of the dialogue is impressive, if you're on the fence, don't be, get it.
edit : BTW, great OT!