I’ve been playing Total War: Warhammer 2 lately and really enjoying it. Funny enough, I actually pre-ordered it way back, but am only now finally getting around to playing it. At least it’s still $60 on Steam, so it’s not like I could have bought it today for half price or anything.
Speaking of cost though, TW:W2 is basically the first game, just with a reskin and a tweak to the main campaign (massive oversimplification). In the past it would qualify as an expansion, and not a full-priced title that itself has additional DLC you can buy. Outrage city right? Nope.
I’d gladly pay $60 today for Bethesda to release a reskin and tweak to Skyrim ala TW:W2. Here is another $60 for a Fallout 4 ‘reskin’ as well. Divinity Original Sin 2? Take my money. I could go on, and I’m sure many of you have your own personal list of games you’d pay to get more content for.
The point is that times have changed. Graphics aren’t evolving as quickly as they once did, so using the same engine for another game doesn’t instantly mean the graphics are outdated. And with how complex AAA titles are now in terms of coding, building on top of a solid base engine you have already fixed up is also a major gain.
Ultimately the market will let you know if your ‘reskin’ is worth a buy, and TW:W2 has sold very well, for which I’m happy about. I already know TW:W3 will be another ‘reskin’, and I’m already in line, cash in hand.
Hardcore Casual 
Lately, I have been reskinning Fallout 4 with free mods. I have over 100 installed now. Can really change the look and feel and add tons of free content. It is assumed that Fallout 76 will not have free modding and everything will have to go through Bethesda paid creation club stuff.
I just picked up Total War: Warhammer on sale and have been enjoying it so far. Does the second one feel more like, “You should get it to have the complete experience”, or more like “Pick it up when you want some more content”? Like, with Stellaris and Civ V, for example, I feel like the expansions really add a lot to the core game, to the point where I would feel like I was missing out if I didn’t have them.
The second has a different campaign featuring the new factions, so in that respect it doesn’t add to the first.
It also allows you to play a giant-sized game, with all factions and both maps (combined and tweaked into one), which is really fun but I’d play the first a few times with the original factions; the giant map is really chaotic and has a somewhat different feel, even when playing the original factions.