I couldn't care less about the items, even if I tried.
It's more about the stuff that happens in the game itself and the characters for me.
Besides, this game has BROCK [tornado fang]ing SAMSON!
And Sam.
And GladOS.
Screw anything else.
That's how I ended up liking the original game. The original game had some great interaction between the characters, partly because they fit well together. You had a nerd, a dork, a psycho, and
the [tornado fang]ing Heavy. This game...you kinda have three psychos and an annoying little [parasitic bomb]. GLaDOS has her funny lines, but firstly, she pokes her head into a lot of conversations, making them seem really forced, and I really missed the enthusiasm of the old dealer. I miss "The player has...A FLUSH!" which is abandoned for "*insert quip here* has a full house. e__e " She also makes way more commentary on how players win. I KNOW I have the higher pair, GLaDOS, I know you like to call people stupid but come on!
In general something feels off with the gameplay. Part of it is, I'm guessing, the pointlessly raised stakes which only serves to confuse the [parasitic bomb] out of someone like me who has played Poker Night 1 over and over again. Then there's the bounty. You know, when it came to Poker Night 1, the item system made a lot more sense. A character was like, "[tornado fang] I don't have the money. Have a gun I guess," or something to that effect. But the item system now is "Hey so the player is so super special that you have to wager something extra because I said so" "okay fine whatever even though I really don't want to do this." Not only that, but you have to actually WIN the tournament instead of bust him out, which pointlessly drags out any item run.
Then there's the voice acting. Max outstays his welcome by being way more than a background character, which is where he really belongs since Telltales clearly lost his voice actor, and now he just sounds disgustingly bad. Sam just sounds off. We all have complaints for Ashley's voice, I'll bet. Brock...well I don't know him, but he tends to deliver most of his lines in the exact same tone almost every time, which I know this voice actor can do better. Craptrap and GLaDOS are, ironically, the only spot-on characters.
I could go on, but...I'm assuming I've already outstayed my welcome, so TL;DR didn't like the voice acting, gameplay is off, and the characters don't seem matched well.