I haven't actually played the game yet, so I'd like to hear it from you: is it as bad as he puts it, or is he just massively let down?
Jeers to the modern 'look how snarky I am!' schtick in these reviews--mark my words, we'll look back on it in twenty years and wince...
That said: Privateer 2's game mechanics do have some clear problems, one of which really harms the game.
The faction system is broken, which goes on to break the random encounters generation. The original Privateer had a great running faction system which based alliances on who you were killing, who you were helping and so forth. Shoot down a Kilrathi and that's a point in your favor for the Confederation, shoot down a militia pilot and the pirates might not be hostile. You could also beg your way out of a tight spot with particular taunts.
Privateer 2 has none of this. The game has five distinct pirate clans which are theoretically fighting each other in interesting ways... but there's no way any of them are ever your friends and there's no way not to fight them if you happen across then randomly. You can't jump out when an enemy is nearby and because of the game's big beautiful world enemies can pop in over and over and over while you're just trying to get somewhere. It also has a Wing Commander 2-style system for making the military and civilians your enemies. Land a stray shot or two on a CIS ship and suddenly you have to kill *everyone* to get anywhere. None of this is permanent, either--land and take off and the good guys are suddenly your pals again.
Other "Privateer" elements have a distressingly thin veneer, too. The economy isn't interesting because there's no penalty for making a bad choice-- ships and guns sell for what you paid for them, so you can just keep ramping up instead of carefully planning for your dream ship. It reeks of someone wanting to make a game easier and in the process forgetting that that doesn't make it as fun.
BUT: when the team wasn't making Privateer they were making something amazing.
The Privateer 2 world is lush and beautiful and fleshed out in so many strange ways. It has such an unusual and detailed and far-ranging style for art and so much work went into building a background world that's so distinct and alive and funny and weird. And the FMV! With apologies to Chris Roberts, The Darkening's FMV is the high point of the Wing Commander series... full of strange and elaborate sets and amazing actors and so much character you might choke on it.
And other parts of the game were so impossibly ahead of other Wing Commanders that it was hard to believe. The 3D engine with lighting would run smoothly on a 486 and put fifty ships in a battle at the same time... while Wing Commander IV was taking ten minutes to load a mission in VGA mode on the same system.
So I suppose it's a tragic thing, ultimately--with a little bit more polish to the mechanics it would be a... cult classic at least, an absolute classic if there's any justice in the universe.