The addition of a second playable character, Pandora, seemingly offers an incentive to run through the game twice. However, as you may have guessed, the actual differences between her and the scythe-toting Death Jr. are negligible. A few different goofy guns (hamster C4? Oh snap!) and faster swinging speeds don't necessitate an entirely new character.
And with all that out of the way, it's worth mentioning that nothing is done terribly wrong here, either. Root of Evil handles all the basics of a playable platformer quite well, floaty jumping aside. If you liked the first game at all, this one's a lot better, easily.
Being able to play the whole thing co-op is a nice bonus too. You and a pal can beat back the acres of toy/monster/beasty things together in the game's co-op mode for hours on end, and somehow it's slightly more entertaining than going it alone.