Top 10 Things Red Dead Redemption 2 Does Better Than The Last of Us 2
In RDR2, you avenge Arthur, and it feels completely satisfying, mainly because Micah was an extremely evil character and he got what he deserved. Also, the aftermath when John can have some time with his family and most members from the gang have a happy ending. But in TLoU2, not only do you not manage to kill Abby for what she did to Joel, but (and this is why I put this one here), Dina leaves you just because you wanted to kill Abby. At a point when you not only didn't know if you made the right decision, but you also felt really bad after finishing the game.
Now... Abby is neither as bad as I thought she was gonna be, but her character arc didn't made any sense in the universe of TLoU2, and there are parts of the game when you don't know if you wanna emphatize with her or with Ellie, at a point when you don't know how would you feel about her, Arthur for the other hand has more depth and more of an arc than John did in the first RDR, at a point when you not only feel what he is having through, but also you feel his change, his evolution as a character
Giving TLoU2 that excuse of being a story about hate just for the sake of explaining how pessimist it needs to be, it's ridiculous, at a point when you feel depressing because of what the characters go through but you felt depressed by the fact it doesn't take one moment to feel happy (besides when Ellie and Dina move to the farm). Not only that, but both the drama and the plot twist feel weird and forced just to appeal to the "hate" plot the game wants to transmit. RDR2 has a lot of depressive moments too, I know... but at least it compensates with a lot of happy moments too, and a satisfying ending where the good guys had a happy ending and the bad guys get what they deserve (plus the events in RDR)
Now this might be unfair because both games have a lot of differences in both story and gameplay, but since they are pretty much third person shooters with a lot of story in it, I'm counting this as a reason... My point is that in RDR2 you have a lot of things to do and more variety since the game is more action oriented, while in the main focus on TLoU2 being the story, it feels repetitive and boring at moments.
Both games have brought new gameplay mechanics that the first ones didn't have, but Naughty Dog removed a lot of gameplay features that we're really fun like puzzles replacing them with boring stuff like moving a dumpster or with that useless jump button.
There aren't a lot of bad secondary characters in TLoU2, just unnecessary ones or ones which arc isn't well made... but in RDR2 you have such a big variety a secondary characters and with such big personalities that the comparison feels not even worthy
Just compare characters like Dina, Jesse and Lev with Hosea, Lenny or Sadie
TLoU2 doesn't really have an uninteresting or bad world, but at being a linear game, it doesn't have a lot of possibilities about exploration or immersion into it, RDR2 being an open world game has a lot of possibilities, places to explore at interesting locations to visit at any moment whenever you want
Now this one feels kind of unfair by TLoU2 having a lot of attention to, specially with the graphics it has, however, since RDR2 is in an open world, it needs an even bigger attention to detail, and more interesting additions to it, which makes it even of a bigger achievement to make... thing that they managed to do, some of them might feel pointless, but other truly help to make the game feel more realistic and adds a lot more to the style of the game
Not only in terms of story but also in terms of dialogue, RDR2 feels better not only by the characters it has but also by the time is made, TLoU2 might have some decent dialogue, but at times the dialogue is either so clumsy, weird or stupid is really cringy, specially with how good the dialogue in the first game was
This might sound completely stupid, but let's compare it to the previous entries of the first games. RDR was located more in the Wild West, which doesn't look completely interesting or even good-looking at times, while RDR2 has more places and environments to explore, making the game more varied and colorful. TLoU1 was based on a post-apocalyptic future, but at least there were parts of the game where it seemed more colorful and hopeful, unlike the second game, where it's so grey that it makes GTA IV look like a Mario or Sonic game.
In RDR2, the epilogue serves the purpose of establishing what John would become in RDR. Despite many people saying that it isn't as good, it's not because the gameplay is boring or something like that. It's just that Arthur was such a great character that people miss playing with him.
TLOU2 is like a fake ray of hope - the whole "this game is about hate" idea wants to show Ellie's life finally becoming hopeful, just to ruin it again with a message that RDR2 managed to deliver better.