Copped the GOTY Edition over winter break and put like 30+ hours in but still haven't finished it. In these games I usually do every single sidequest available to me so it's easy to rack up a ton of hours. I'd agree that I've been dying way more in this game than the first but I think that's mostly due to the class I chose. In Borderlands 1 I spent most of my time as Roland and got super reliant on his turret ability during both of my playthroughs. Went with the gunzerker for the sequel and I miss having the turret for support.
Playing the gunzerker is all about empyting your clips into enemies as fast as possible, which I thought I wanted, but I end up playing a lot more cautiously than I'd like. The other thing is that his dual wielding ability is fukking useless. Yeah, you're firing twice as fast, but the hit you take to accuracy isn't really worth it to me. When get another chance to play (left the game at home while I'm away at school) I'll try to spec him in the direction of the sexual tyrannosaurus skill so I have more regenerating health. I might also just reroll and play with the commando next time. That character seems similar to how Roland played in the last game and I need someone who can compensate for the fact that I play these games single player MMOs, never connecting to Live for co-op.