I can tell you why the sequel is not rated as high. It's the whole thing where the author makes something more complicated and puts effort into it to add extra features and bells and whistles and is partial to the extra bells and whistles because of the extra effort he put into making them, but an impartial outside perspective says "no, that complication detracts from the value of the game". There is value to something being simpler. Look at canabalt, for instance. Or this review. A bunch of words, words, words, you don't want to read all that, right? And yet I am describing things in greater detail than someone else might with a simple comment that doesn't really say anything. Did I get my point across? Same thing. No one wants to get into some complicated thing with some unintelligible plot for something like this. Unless you can trick them into thinking it's deep and meaningful with the rigamarole, which is a possibility, it's not going to work for anyone. And the one bit of meaning there might be was already present in THIS game. Here we have a bunch of callous pedestrians who will gladly step on the cat. It's a statement about the world. And a more concise statement than the sequel.