When Battlefront 1 was released it was rightly criticized for its thin content and casual gameplay. However after all the DLC released and a few free content patches were given, it now has more than enough content to warrant a full price purchase. It's an exploitative business practice to rely on DLC to make your game fully featured by charging double, but EA makes the fictitious Galactic Empire look like care bears by comparison. Also all the content can be bought in the Ultimate Edition for a reduced price.
Battlefront II promised to make up for all the errors of the original game by distributing all DLC for free, having more content at launch, and having deeper gameplay, but now almost a year after launch we have learned that all those promises were false, and Battlefront 2 is worse in every way than it's predecessor.
To start with, while Battlefront 2 has more maps than Battlefront 1, several DLC maps of Battlefront 2 are just ports of Battlefront 1 maps. Honestly this isn't as big of a deal for me as I generally find that players online gravitate to one or two maps that they really like, and just play them over and over, such as de_dust and Italy back during the CS beta days.
A major issue however, is that Battlefront II has less weapons to use. Related to that is that the class system from Battlefront II is actually worse than the star card system from Battlefront 1. And the third related issue is that Battlefront II still uses star cards despite also having a class system.
The reason this is a problem is because it gates content away from the player. Nominally, this is to balance the gameplay better, however the weapons and abilities can still be balanced without locking them behind specific classes. Battlefront's implementation of classes also makes the gameplay inconsistent, as now your weapon's effectiveness varies depending on the health and resistance of your opponent.* It also killed the in game customization, since all classes need to remain visually recognizable for players to gauge their opponents in game.
Admittedly, the jump pack broke the balance of Battlefront 1 and became a "must pick" star card for every player, so Battlefront 2 made a rational change in locking it to an elite class, but that's really the only positive change.
The Star Card system was never as good as Battlefield's equipment system or Call of Duty's loadouts, but in Battlefront 1 it still potentially allowed you the freedom to experiment and choose what you wanted to complement a play style. In Battlefront 2 the star cards do not allow you to customize and experiment, and you are locked to a small selection of Star Cards per class and the majority of them are just direct upgrades to your existing abilities. A great deal of depth is lost and eventually you just end up playing the same class the same way.
There are only four weapons per class in Battlefront 2, and the default weapon just changes appearance depending on which faction you are playing. This is a straight downgrade from Battlefront 1 where every weapon was available to the player, and all had their own unique stats.
And as a Star Wars nerd, I fault Battlefront II for including the sequel trilogy and spinoffs, and now the Clone Wars. Battlefront 1 stuck to the universe of the original trilogy, where everything is iconic, and not the other movies, where everything is a pale copycat. Battlefront 1 does have a map set on Jakku, a planet introduced in the 7th film, and it makes my point for me - there is nothing on this map that makes it distinct from Tattoine, apart from brighter colored sand and a fallen Star Destroyer in the distance. The final DLC adds content from the spinoff movie Rogue One, and the forgettable quality of that also proves my point.
And the most important reason why Battlefront 1 is just better, is that the gunplay in Battlefront 2 is just worse. The first Battlefront was heavily criticized for extremely casual gameplay, such as low spread, little to no recoil, no difference between firing "from the hip" and zoom in aiming. The people complaining about that are idiots. All of those are very good things, and everyone agrees, even the detractors, that accurate led to a faster, more aggressive playstyle. The community was expecting something slower like the Battlefield, which is more about tactical positioning than it is about aiming and tracking your opponents. Battlefront also has more movement options with the addition of the dodge roll and yes, the jumppack, which leads to more dynamic gameplay and discourages camping.
Battlefront 2 brought in the mechanics of military shooters, much to its own detriment. Reloading/"cooling" became a central aspect of the metagame, the weapons were made less accurate in "hip fire" mode but thankfully not to the severe levels in Call of Duty or Battlefield, and the time to kill on weapons was shortened. This coupled with the lack of variety in weapons per class, the balance problems between each class, and the awful star card system lead to gameplay that is much less about player skill than it is about the setup of the player and random luck.
What Battlefront 2 should have done instead is either copy the loadout system wholesale from the Battlefield or Call of Duty series, or stick to the rigid class system of Pandemic's original Battlefront series, where there was no customization in class at all but there were something like 6 classes per faction and extra unlockable classes.
And finally, one idea that Battlefront 2 had that was technically better than Battlefront 1, but failed in execution was the removal of the token pick ups. Battlefront 1 had tokens scattered throughout the map which would give players a random extra ability or let them spawn in as a hero or vehicle, and Battlefront 2 removed this in favor of a point system. The system in Battlefront 1 was random and frustrating, and all the hero and vehicle pickups would be camped by players who wanted to lock them down, so the battle point system of Battlefront 2 sounds better on paper, however it is hobbled by the need to unlock heroes and vehicles outside the match before playing, and the number restriction on vehicles, which means players that are built to farm battle points will lock those down before other players. Also this system means that the fourth ability slot is lost.
Battlefront 2 did only one thing better than Battlefront 1, and that is the starfighter gameplay. However, the vehicles actually handle exactly the same as the first game, there is just the option to manually control your roll. Still, it is technically a straight improvement over Battlefront 1 and the added UI elements like the missile lock notification and aim indicator, and the removal of auto-aim fire, greatly benefit the starfighter gameplay.
In conclusion, Battlefront 2 made a lot of promises to improve Battlefront 1, and came up short. The only ones it did deliver on were a larger number of maps and vehicles, however the gameplay is still bland and unexciting, the star card system actually got worse, and the new class system actually created more problems and removed the few good things from the first game. I hope the fan backlash from two successive failures from EA discourage them from making a Battlefront 3, but it is still sad to see one of my favorite shooter series and fictional universe lose such potential.
Battlefront 1 has more weapons, larger star card variety, better balance (but you still must pick the jetpack on any loadout), better game modes and faster gameplay. It also has a litany of problems, however those are not addressed in Battlefront 2 at all. Battlefront 1 now sells in the Ultimate Edition, which bundles in all the DLC and makes it a much more compelling purchase than Battlefront 2.
*This is also a criticism levied against Quake Champions, but the "champions" of Quake champions do not lock weapons to a specific hero, and while health, armor and speed vary between champions, the added active and passive abilities give players more tools to make their character more effective, even if the weapons take longer to kill your opponent if he has a higher health and armor limit. Admittedly, it's not perfect, Quake 3 was as close to perfect in it's way, but if you want that experience then play with active and passive abilities turned off, and force Ranger as the only playable champion.
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