A superb game which you can pick up very cheap now!
I can see that this is not everyones cup of tea but i really enjoyed playing it. The fact that the main character can talk, i thought it was the best improvement over the first game. The cut scenes are now much more fun to watch. I laughed so many times when you see hawke come out with witty sarcasm. At times it also has that movie-game feel, loved it.
The combat system:
It has been very sped up, combat feels twice as fast as DA1. I didn't think this was really a bad thing. Most of the time you would be facing a posse of bandits or darkspawn, which you just want to wipe out as quickly as possible without wasting too much time swinging your sword slowly like you did in DA1. I would go as far to say its a lot less boring, especially the rogue class with duel weapons. When you get to tougher battles you can pause with the radial menu and think more strategically on how to use the abilities of your party all the same as DA1. I don't know why i've seen so many people complain about the combat in this game.
The story/plot:
Don't want to spoil too much, The game is separated into "acts" and each act DOES have a central plot which you are working towards. The side quests i found to be pretty fun mainly because there is like 100 times more cuts scenes in this game than the first which makes things a lot more enjoyable and interesting. But again don't know why people had so much to complain about this aspect of the game as it just had as many "fetch/errand" quests as the first. The ones that were not, were very enjoyable and interesting to play.
Presentation and interface:
Takes a little getting used to because sometimes you still think you are playing DA1. I would say overall this is probably an aspect of the game where it is not as good as the first. I found the the layout of all your skill/spells/inventory more of a hassle to browse through. They are now divided into to a lot more sub menus. The designs for some reason, have dropped a lot lower and do not look as good as DA1. There is no excuse for this especially when they had already made DA1 so you would think they could improve on something so simple right?
Overall:
Because i got this game nearly 2 years after its release, i managed to pick this up really really cheap. I would be lying if i didn't say that because i only paid $15, the score i have given is a bias reflection of what i got for what i paid.
The main complaint i have with this game is that it is way too short. Feels a lot shorter than DA1. Such a shame as i really did like this game, and loved playing it every minute.
So if by some chance you have not played this yet and are reading this wandering whether to pick it up or not, then DO IT! now is the perfect time when the price is so low!