I tried not to read much prior, although I saw the high rating and read a few reviews, so maybe my expectations were too high going in. I thought it was better than the first one although I didn't think much of the first one. My biggest complaint is they really could have done with some better editing and cut it down 10-15 minutes as it just dragged in spots. While I very much like character development, some of those scenes just went on a little too long, but more than that character development should slowly build and set the stage of things to come and get you hyped up like in Avengers, however I just didn't get that same feeling here at all. I kind of liked the whole conspiracy gig at first, but at the same time it was a bit of a re-hash as well once things finally came out.

The one thing I did really like is Cap was noticeably stronger in this one. Able to fall a long way down and land on solid ground, jump out of a plane from high up and land in the water with no chute, and able to take on a horde of people when seemingly outnumbered. So that was cool and I liked that they beefed him up quite a bit as he was little more than a pompous dork with a shield in Avengers. But my other gripe is I don't think he picked up a single weapon the entire movie. Yeah I get his shield can be an offensive weapon too, but I'm sorry when he's walking up to a horde of gunfire and his only defense is that shield, surely you would think a bullet or two might hit his legs, so that aspect of him only using his shield just kind of bugs me. Even in the first movie and Avengers he used guns to some extent, but not here that I can recall at all

Far as other characters, Scarlet / Black Widow being in the movie was pretty much a treat as she's just sexy as hell and you know she'll never get her own movie, so why not put her in as a side kick whenever possible. I liked how they were kind of building something between her and Cap but it just fell flat and didn't go anywhere. Fury also got more air time in this which was good. Far as the Falcon, I really don't know what to think. You get introduced to him early and like Cap know he's a veteran and righteous guy, then don't see much of him and then all of a sudden Cap and Widow crash his pad when they're desperate and then all of a sudden this guy who you know nothing about is stashing a futuristic pair of wings and seemingly a semi super hero as well? What the hell??? It's not that I disliked him but it's just as if he came out of obscurity. They tried to develop his character a little from the beginning but didn't really do a good job IMHO. So kind of a mixed bag there. I liked the winter soldier although he was the one guy I wished got more air time. I like how they developed him and who knows where we'll go from here with all that. Can't really say anymore on that.

To sum up, I saw it in IMAX 3D which is really the best possible viewing experience and overall I wasn't wowed over and left thinking it was just decent. I was bored through the first 20+ minutes, it started to get a little better. The whole conspiracy thing started off intriguing (intentionally leaving this vague here) but ultimately I just thought was kind of dumb upon the big reveal and one of those "Okay, really" moments rather than a "whoa that was a cool twist!" they were trying for. The final buildup and battle made for some decent action but was also very straight forward, unoriginal and telegraphed, so no big surprises there which would have been nice. I guess when you leave a movie and end up saying to the buddy you went with "Well, the trailer for Spider man 2 looked awesome!" that kind of sums it up. Overall I rate as a 6/10 (5 being an average movie)