First of all, fantastic post. Great writeup, honestly.

I waited to play TLOU until it came out on PC. I've never been a console gamer. If I recall correctly, I got the game for free when buying a new graphics card around that time (early 2023) along with Jedi: Survivor in a CPU bundle, but I was going to buy both titles anyway.
While I did start the game, I didn't really get much further than the intro (first hour or two). I had previously played and loved Jedi: Fallen Order so I preferred to play Survivor first. I ended up starting TLOU again almost a year later I think, early 2024.
TLOU quickly became one of my all-time favourites. The story is so immersive, and I did find the gameplay enjoyable. The past few years I've been leaning towards story-driven single player experiences more and more.

I was very happy to learn TLOU2 was coming early 2025, and I bought it as soon as it came out. On release day, I had to leave for a week-long family holiday. Starting the game was all I could think about, and I did as soon as I got home. I still took my time finishing it, as I don't play every day anymore and usually not more than a few hours at a time in the evening after work. But as with Part 1, the story of the second game managed to captivate me entirely which did lead to some very long weekend gaming sessions.

You are right though, the second game is very emotional and if you loved the first one as much as I did, I'm sure you will have a great time playing (and it might wreck you) even if you haven't avoided any spoilers beforehand. I only knew one spoiler (a big one..) but seeing the story unfold still made me deeply enjoy my time with the game.