Don't understand the hate.

Agreed. I thought this was great, and though I'll have to watch it a second time to make up my mind, found it a bit better than the first.

Me 2 :-) but 1st was better anyways

I agree. I watched the first one again yesterday and the second one today for the first time.
Sin City 2 doesn't have the freshness of course, because we all know the awesome look already. And it was a little sad that so many actors couldn't show up again in their old roles.
But apart from these two points, I can't find anything substantial to criticise. Both films get 8 points in my list. The first one may be a little stronger because of cinematic relevance.
Both movies are so similar that you cannot differ very much in your rating.
I can't understand why Sin City 2 got so much bad press.

Sin City 2 kicks ass and it gives all the PG-13 kiddy fare the big fat middle finger and says *beep* YOU

Well, the problem wasn't that it wasn't true to the original, but that it offered nothing new and just a felt like a weak rehash. All the stories felt very similar to one another this time around and they all felt a little too connected to each other for the universe to feel any bigger than last time. I just don't get much of a sense of new story potential being explored as a lot of it just feels like retread. It's not a horrible film, as it is faithful to Miller's style and the world of Sin City is always fun, but it just feels too little for a film that really should expand on top of the first film.

It was a pretty half-ass sequel, and that was apparent from the terrible hair and makeup jobs to the lazy writing (meaninglessly screwing with the timeline in order to resurrect fan favorite characters, inconsistencies with the characters like the Old Town whores suddenly having no problem killing cops, etc.).

They also overdid things that were more subtle in the first like the selective coloring of certain objects and the animated shots. While those aspects certainly contributed to the style of the first, they went overboard with it this time around. Most of the coloring seemed random and uninspired and overused.

While Marv is by far my favorite character and I would not have given the sequel a viewing at all had it not been for his return despite the fact that it makes no sense, he was in it way too much, which took away too much of the mystery of the character. Every time there was a scene at the bar, they always had to cut to a shot a Marv to beat us over the head with the fact that these characters are connected. It's disrespectful to the audience. His only purpose in the film was to help other characters with their storylines. I'm actually surprised Johnny's storyline didn't end with him eliciting Marv's help and the two of them sneaking into the senator's mansion and killing everybody (of course, then they wouldn't be able to throw in the random Nancy storyline as an excuse to bring Bruce Willis back whose Hartigan was completely superfluous and boring).

The only decent storylines were the actual Dame To Kill For storyline with Dwight (played terribly by Josh Brolin) and the Johnny storyline, the former of which would have been much better with Clive Owen obviously and the latter would have been better with a more charismatic and talented actor than Levitt. He also just doesn't look right for the Sin City world unless he's playing a character like Elijah Wood's Kevin from the first film.

But, yeah, that's the reason for the hate in a nutshell. It just felt like a lazy, half-ass attempt. Everybody just phoned it in.

"This life's hard, man, but it's harder if you're stupid!"

i can; it's a lazily crafted film, very insipid despite the stylized effects.