I don't know if Larian understands quite why Beyond Divinity wasn't as good though. I think that some parts of the game like the Battlefields were a huge step backwards and 1000 randomly generated combinations of the same repetitive tileset is the worst that the genre has to offer. I think that the PC action/RPG needs an infusion of new ideas. The formula is getting kind of boring now. I'm so damn sick of tileset-based games with randomly generated content. They all seem the same to me, except for maybe Sacred. Even with that game though, I got bored with it after about 25-30 hours. I couldn't play Titan Quest for more than about an hour, it was so boring and derivative. The Dungeon Siege series at least has great multiplayer, but if you don't have anyone to play the game with, it's excruciatingly boring.
I would love to see Divinity 2 be like Divinity 1 with a graphical upgrade and a more balanced role playing system, and perhaps a totally seamless world (vs. DD's world with loading zones here and there). Less maze-like boring repetitive dungeons and more hand-crafting ala the Gothic series or old Bioware and Black Isle RPG's. The fun of exploring the world of a hand-crafted RPG, in my opinion, overcomes all sorts of problems. This seems to be a forgotten art in RPG-making nowadays. It's the reason why I stick with Gothic 3 despite hating it sometimes and it being nearly unplayable on my system.
The screenshot does look beautiful though. Larian has really good artists. I think that they also interact on their forums more than most developers and take ideas from the community. They even named some of the characters in BD after frequent posters. I thought that was a very nice gesture.