Bolstered by the lead single "You Could Be Mine", Use Your Illusion II was the slightly more popular of the two albums, selling a record 770,000 copies its first week and debuting at No.

In addition, Use Your Illusion II is more political than most of their previous work, with songs like "Civil War", a cover of Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", and "Get in the Ring" dealing respectively with the topics of violence, law enforcement and media bias.

The band's cover of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" had been released almost a year earlier on the Days of Thunder soundtrack, while "Civil War" debuted at the 1990 Farm Aid concert.

The original subject matter of the song dealt with Izzy Stradlin's failed relationship with ex-girlfriend Angela Nicoletti.

Each also has at least one track sung by other members of the band: lead vocals are performed by bassist Duff McKagan on "So Fine", a song that was dedicated to punk rock musician Johnny Thunders, who died from a drug overdose before the recording of the album.

[10] The song "Locomotive" was written in a house Slash and Izzy Stradlin rented in the Hollywood Hills following the Appetite for Destruction tours.

Rolling Stone critic Christian Wright wrote that the album's songs "range from ballad to battle, pretty to vulgar, worldly to incredibly naive", concluding that Rose "whips victimization, menace and struggle into one fluid, triumphant motion.

"[22] Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune commented that both Use Your Illusion albums "represent a staggering leap in ambition, musicianship, production and songwriting" and "rank with the best hard rock of the last decade", while also finding that II contains more "knockout punches" than I.

[16] Although deeming I the better record, USA Today's Edna Gundersen called II similarly "rebellious, ambitious and powerful".

[24] In NME, Mary Anne Hobbs panned both albums for their "dreadfully laboured feel" and "asinine" lyrics; as examples of the latter, she cited the "gratuitous sexism" of "Pretty Tied Up" and "slack political rhetoric" of "Civil War".

[25] In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine described Use Your Illusion II as "more serious and ambitious than I, but ... also considerably more pretentious", finding it a tedious listen due to its "pompous production and poor pacing" despite commending the "nervy energy" of certain songs.

[12] Ann Powers was more complimentary in the 2004 Rolling Stone Album Guide, calling it "spacier" than I while noting that "Yesterdays" and "You Could Be Mine" show that Guns N' Roses "can still focus to great effect".