>With that said, a lot of the gripes with the second also have
>to do with a high combat learning curve

The enhanced edition of the second game comes with a tutorial that wasn't included when the game was first released. The tutorial isn't bad and helps understand the flow of combat.

Honestly just playing for about an hour I got pretty used to it. It's still not the best combat I've used in a game but as of now I'm finding myself flowing pretty well as far as using my powers in between to mix things up a bit.

I would watch clips of the first one or at least read a wiki on it. Then try out the second. Loving the story and I'm heavily invested in the characters now.