I was the one trying to talk the friend group out of pre-ordering for years. Oddly enough, I haven't needed to do that in a while.
Might have something to do with how the last time that discussion happened, the game in question was Fallout 76.
I didn't even have to say "told you so" for it to never come up again.
Edit: I feel like my comment got colored by a lot of the consequent replies. I'm not saying you shouldn't, nor that if you want every detail, there isn't more to see by playing it first. I'm saying AW2 isn't among the interconnected games that you might as well not even play unless you're up to date on every detail. Yes, it has a lot of interconnects with other Remedy games, but it's fan-bloody-tastic entirely on its own.