It feels very similar, gameplay-wise. Traversal is still super engaging and fun, the combat is pretty fluid (it starts out kinda rough until you upgrade your skills), and visually it's amazing. If you liked either of the previous games, you'll like this one. It hits all the same notes, plus some new ones.

As for differences, there aren't many. You can fly/glide now, you can switch between Spider Men, there's some new gadgets, some new skills to compliment the old ones, etc.

There's a lot of low-key flexes the devs snuck in that you might not even notice while you're playing, which just goes to show exactly how well they've optimized the game. Things like full-city zooms with no pop-in, extreme close-ups, etc.

It looks amazing. Especially the later half of the game. There were a few fights in particular where it felt like playing a stop motion animated film with the way the enemy model moved and blended with the environment. Very cool.

The story is MUCH more interesting and engaging than the previous games. It helps that they are arguably using some of the most interesting story beats from the comics, but the main questline is excellent.

Because of the next gen tech, the epic moments in the game are able to be much bigger and epic in scale and some of the little cinematic touches.

So the open world gameplay hasn't evolved much outside of better scene density and a bit more refined a combat system with core powers/gadgets rather than switching around a lot.

But the main questline experience is a huge, huge step up from previous games, and well worth the price of admission alone.