I felt the 2nd season was extremely easy to binge-watch and I enjoyed it even though it kind of left me with a empty-handed feeling. Like you say it's basically only half a season. I also kind of feel it was made more just because the 1st season was such a surprise success and the money was too good.

The highlights for me were the 2 new games, I still don't understand why Squid Game got so popular while a series like Alice In Borderland which is basically the same buy in my view way better never took off.