Not long to go now :) Frostpunk 1 was one of my all time favorite games and I think everyone should check out the sequel. It's been getting stellar reviews.
New one is a lot different. Instead of individual buildings, you’re building districts. I never really got into the first too much, but I played for 8 hours yesterday. If you’re into city building with politics, it’s pretty great.
You try and build a city for people, and it's extreamly cold. So you have to make them go out and gather resources and make difficult choices (morally). If you are not finding ways to make at least the majority of people happy, you get kicked out from leadership and even banned if I remember correctly.
I felt like I was there. It's a very atmospheric game with great music and story.
Kinda. In FP1 you can make kids work in mines and you can force your townsfolk to work extremely long hours and eat sawdust in their rations to make the food stretch longer. You can turn their heat down to save resources. Etc.