Miss 4e D&D

[Ignimortis]

If we made a 2 axis plot where one is the number of decisions/unit of game time and the other is the impact of each individual decision, I think we can agree that the "few decisions with low impact" quadrant is much less tactical than the "many decisions with high impact" quadrant. But the "fewer decisions with higher impact" and "more decisions with lower impact" quadrants are much harder to quantify--the extremes of each quadrant (very few decisions with extremely high impact, or very many decisions of very low impact) are not very tactical, but things definitely get more tactical as you start from one extreme and increase one parameter while lowering the other--until you pass a tipping point and start becoming less tactical as you head towards the other extreme. My play experience with both systems (referenced to my extensive gaming background) suggests to me that they are on roughly similar tier levels in terms of how tactical they are, but it's hard to draw that comparison since they reside in opposite quadrants of the decisions vs impact level plot.

The thing about PF2 is that it's few actual decisions with low impact. Because you have a few things you don't really think about doing. If you are built to do Power Attack, then every turn you're NOT doing Power Attack means you're contributing severely less than you should. If you're built to Demoralize, then you'd better do it at least once per turn until you can't. Spellcasters have several good options, but very few of them are gonna be simultaneously good inside a single combat.

To my experience of two+ years playing PF2, it isn't really more tactical than any D&D edition but 5e - and even then only because 5e is so eager to let you win that you don't need tactics until the fight is well into Deadly x ? range.