I didn't gel with the first game, if the world they depict actually exists then it's totally alien to me, i've seen a lot of exaggerated American high school stereotypes but the first game took it to a place on the border of a hellscape (i'm from the UK so please let me know if i'm wrong, if it's even close to reality then America needs help).
There were some good surprises in the game related to the choices the player makes, but it gets tiring when any choice the characters make always has to result in some life changing consequences.
Then there's the ending.

Shaka brah.

Huh, figured their staff is too small to multitask from Vampyr. Sounds like they're sort of doing the Telltale thing then, and probably have a skeletal team working on Life Is Strange. That said, I wouldn't expect major details until after Vampyr is done and probably released. Honestly wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to let Life Is Strange cannibalize sales of Vampyr. This isn't exactly a Guardians of the Galaxy vs. TWD:NF, since we clearly want both. I also don't expect any real reference to the previous story in the new game. So new characters (obviously), new location (more obviously), new power unrelated to time, etc.

cikame: I'll admit, I'm impressed that for a game you didn't gel with, you know a LOT about the game. It's a rather detailed analysis that is based on the content of the game. You wouldn't be able to say any of this if you hadn't either played it, or watched let's play in almost its entirety. I'm not being sarcastic, I do understand the criticisms (especially regarding purpose), and in some ways, it shares similar storyline oddities with David Cage's Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy (which is why he tried to fix it with Heavy Rain, but... Still kinda messed up in its execution).

Honestly, this is sort of why I enjoyed games like A Normal Lost Phone (that's on both Steam and iOS/Android), because the dialogue is so refreshingly realistic and sometimes relatable. I mean, I find it surprisingly rare to find believable dialogue because I feel that writers try too hard to make their dialogue interesting rather than convincingly natural. That said, DONTNOD Entertainment isn't an American company, so there's the whole outside perspective on what American culture is like. And David Cage is French so there's a decent excuse behind that too.

But I do see your point on the main criticisms on... Well, everything else. And I too wonder why it is the way it is.

I watched Giant Bomb play through it all, they were more taken with it than i was but their reactions to certain events in the game were worth seeing.

Fair enough.