Didn't play the old, but bought this yesterday.
Amazing game.
From Rock Paper Shotgun, don't read the article if you don't want the 'plot' spoiled:
"Lonely tedium, that slow, slow walk through a stark land, leads to subconscious introspection. Ever walked along an empty beach at night? Sat alone on a hillside on a cold winter morning? Where did your mind go? Wherever it was, thatÂ’s where Dear Esther can take it. If you let it."
"Given I have no wish to play it again, nor do I understand why anyone else would, at $10 Dear Esther does seem, by standard metrics, too expensive for a mere 90 minutes or so of slow journey through a Hebridean island wilderness with only one possible outcome. Then again, the same money would buy me an hour and a half of going to watch a man dressed as a superhero punch some special effects."