I chalk a lot of that up to so much of the mystery of the world being removed by the end of Zero Dawn. What was left was pretty much spelled out for us in the early hours of Forbidden West. That mystery was its strongest draw. In hindsight, they would have been much better off leaving a lot more unanswered by the end of the first game.
Arguably, that's not the main problem, main problem is that they haven't done almost anything interesting with what's left. They've tried with different tribes and
somewhat succeeded, the world and lore is still interesting and much better that in Zero Dawn. There's two main problems, 1st one is the story and if to be exact - rushed last mission and bs reveal at the end, the 2nd one is...
Aloy needs to grow and change. Her current personality is very exhausting. Too much "literally designed hero of humanity" and not enough "human like the rest of us". As far as the incoming threat goes, yeah. I'm already over the whole Rogue A.I. thing but I'm willing to see what they do with this supposed monstrosity. I am super curious what it looks like and how it behaves. Not to mention what the plan is to beat something that wiped out a super advanced civilization of immortals.
Yes, Aloy.
They need to completely change her personality, but if they'll do it again in III with 0 significant and MUCH NEEDED changes - literally nobody's going to care not only about her, but also about the game, cuz it's the main character ffs and you spending 100% of the time with her. Now, I can't really say that she's as bad when she's out in the open world, doing stuff for others, completing side quests etc. but when it comes to story, she fails miserably and you can't relate to such a person and care about her, you could in the fist game, but not in Forbidden West.
Funny enough, they could use A.I. to replicate his voice...
I hope they won't. Better to just let other actor voice him and think of a lore and story friendly reason as to why the voice has changed - I'm sure they'll figure it out.