I just finished the Demo and I wanted to share my thoughts on it:
Leveling was a lot smoother than in Book 1. Book 1 felt like a struggle to get the first couple of levels, but this was a nice steady rise in power. I cannot explain exactly why that is, because I think the monster experience values stayed about the same.
The introduction plot is slightly less interesting than the introduction plot from Book 1, but the NPC's are written with much better personality and the Eastwillow + Dam area is a lot more engaging.
The graphics are a notable improvement, and I enjoyed the way that forests are no longer a mostly impassable mass. It's actually possible to wander through the forest now! You couldn't really do this in Book 1 except for Baron's Thicket.
There are too many mundane items I cannot identify! It makes perfect sense that I cannot identify magic items, oils, or the value of strange gems. There is absolutely no reason why I cannot identify dried meat, silver rings, wild potatoes, a loaf of bread, or some mundane throwing daggers. The biggest insult was finding some Unknown fish. Being a Fisherman is the only memory I'm supposed to have left! I also had to repeatedly identify three different wild potatoes. Why don't I know what a Wild Potato looks like the first time I pay to identify it? This was very obnoxious.
Sometimes the treasure is anticlimactic. I specifically recall one chest at the bottom of the well. The text made a big deal of insinuating that some unseen hand had guided the excavation towards this place. Inside the chest I found... 70 gold. What? I'm pretty sure unseen hands have no problem getting 70 gold without digging out holes in the ground.
Those are my general thoughts. There are a few other little things that did not affect my enjoyment of gameplay in the slightest, but I figured I should mention them so they can get fixed.
When you talk to Darus about the history of Thaermore he tells you that the Crux of Ages was nothing more than a 'mere gemstone'. He then turns around and explains to how it was far more than a 'mere gemstone'. I think he needs to have a quick rewrite to get his story straight.
When you blast through the rock in the well cavern it tells you that 'despite the lack of dust, this room appears to have been rarely visited'. Dust only accumulates if there is a lot of activity in the area, so if the room was rarely visited then there would be no reason for a lot of dust, so it shouldn't say 'despite the lack of dust'.
When you talk to the dwarf under the Dam, there is a typo where he means to say 'though' but instead says 'thought'.
Once my waterskin became empty, it would never fill up again no matter how many times I clicked on a well or cast Draw Water.
The waterskin bug is a known issue with the waterskin from your house if you don't have equipment wear turned on. Sell that one and buy a different waterskin and you'll be fine.
The gold in the well is a bit underwhelming (though you got the least possible gold, I think, for that chest--it's a random amount from 70 to 130, I think).
Another poor soul led astray by the empty promises of bbcode...
I very much agree with your assessment of the early game in Book I vs Book II - it's smoother in the second game. I think a lot of it has to do with the easy availability of XP from fairly simple quests. As a result, you can get to level 3-4 pretty easily, which makes a lot of builds less of a challenge to slog through until you get to reasonable levels in your key skills.
