Come on in and read this honest review. Free punch and pie.
First, you will notice that it has become "cool" to bash this game. From the massive amounts of thumbs down on any praising review to the plethora of reviews using the term "doesn't compare to the original," it's obvious that the trendy thing to do is to deny this game the recognition it deserves. (edit: it took ONE day to get 8 thumbs down on this review. It's like there are people out there who devote their lives to finding every positive review of DA2 and trolling it)
But when you look closer at their reviews, it almost seems like they didn't want a "sequel" to Dragon Age as much as they wanted a time machine to go back and rediscover Dragon Age for the first time all over again. No, this is not Dragon Age reincarnate, get over it.
What this is, however, is all the components that made Dragon Age great, improved and polished.
-The Fighting-
I heard the term "hack n slash" so often that I thought they had changed the game to where you had to constantly hit attack to keep swinging. Wrong. This is the exact same setup as DA, only 5 times better. The spells are better looking, the attacks have more of an actual impact feel, and I feel like a straight up ninja zipping around the battlefield, taking out several enemies in bunches.
I honestly don't know what people are complaining about. Every aspect of fighting is improved and looks beautiful. They say that you can't zoom out into "tactical view" anymore. Well you can zoom out enough to view the whole battlefield, so who the hell is zooming out more than that? People that don't like graphics and prefer to view fights from an overhead blimp view? And why do you need to see so much? There are 4 friggin characters, each with an easy auto-tactic setup that should allow you to ignore them for the entire game.
Once, I charged in with my warrior, put the hurt on some guy, stunned him, and my rogue disappeared and reappeared right behind him and took his head off. Now rewind back to DA 1 where the rogues just stand behind dudes doing the 1, 2 stab animation and warriors have 2 chopping motions.
-The Presentation-
The music is appropriately creepy in the dank, dark places of the world. The acting (main character and random person alike) is superb. Direct X 11 makes shadows and spell auras stand out.
And for once, your character has a voice, a personality, and you become attached to them and share in their struggles and tribulations. Now go play DA 1, where your character stares blankly like a Tranquil, and expresses himself through text.
And speaking of the interaction, each dialogue is accompanied with an icon to let you know which selections are good/funny/bad and which will move the story along and which ones won't (question marks). This is very helpful in staying true to the good or evil character you have decided to go with.
Plus, you no longer accidentally flirt with other men and end up bedding Zevran.
-The Gear-
Yes, it does kind of suck that only the main character can change gear. But it isn't that bad. This ensures that the characters look like themselves throughout the game and don't come off ridiculous and goofy like Alistair did if you happen to have suited him in Blood Dragon gear like I did.
Also, the gear itself is pretty bad-ass. Maybe I was fortunate in my finds, but I spent most the game with the Fallen gear set and the rest with the Champion gear set. Both were black and full of bad-assery.
Even the staffs managed to look awesome, especially compared to the 2-3 models from DA. And the swords are huge, unique, and look straight out of Final Fantasy 8.
-Quests-
I've heard that "there aren't enough side quests in DA2." Are you kidding me? That's all there is in DA2. My one and only complaint about DA2 is that there really isn't a goal to be achieved here. Just side quest after side quest until you're 6 hours in and finally get a side quest that feels like a main quest.
But it's really hard to top DA 1 on this. After you make a game where you "become the hero, save the world," where do you go from there? Should he have become Grey Warden of the World and saved the Universe? So instead your entire purpose is to make a better life for yourself, which you do... and then you just kind of start helping other people with their problems like a Jesus for Hire.
Another note. People have said this game is too short. I don't know if it's because I'm playing all 3 classes at once, but I'm about 4 days in with my main character and still haven't finished. Even though at 2 different times II expected the game to end and it just kept going.
And as far as the "not enough places, just the same place over and over" complaint. Go back to DA 1 and look how many places there are. You have the main base for each race, then a handful of "empty field" and "middle of the forest" locations. That's it. DA2 has several city locations, which literally look completely different at night, and all the caves and deep roads and coasts of the outlying lands. There are actually more locations in DA2.
-Characters-
If I had a 2nd complaint about this game. This would probably be it. Every character in DA1 was so unique and interesting that you gladly delved into their backstories and did their quests for them.
In DA2, the only really engaging character for me was Varric. He was legitimately funny and made me want an archer around for the first time ever. The other characters are just a little generic.
Your tank is a lesbian looking (not the good kind), "follows the rules" bore. Merrill is one of those stereotypical annoying, apologetic nuisances. Isabela has nice boobs. Fenris is almost evil enough to be interesting if he wasn't a frail metrosexual trying to pass as a 2h weapon wielder. Anders is only interesting when he isn't Anders. And Bethany (spoiler?) was gone the whole time after the Circle claimed her.
-Difficulty-
It seems like they made this game easier. You take out 3 times as many enemies as the last game without even losing half your health. I used to go through potions as soon as the cooldown was up, and usually let as least 1 melee fighter die in the big battles of DA1. The one battle I feel they got perfect in this game, though, was the 1 on 1 fight vs the Arishok (if you chose to duel). That battle lasted like 10 minutes and I went through the bulk of my potions and used the pillars to run around when I needed more time to recover. They could have ended the game right there.
-Glitches-
Just a side note. I noticed a couple of glitches while playing. Fenris was getting drunk off a bottle of wine but he was holding air while the bottle sat on the table. And during the parts where you have to run through timed traps, I would get hit by nothing and juggled back to the start even though the traps were still in the ground.
Also, I don't know if it's a glitch or I've just got mad skills... but you can be romantically involved with Merrill AND Isabel. Before the final battle you kiss one, then walk right over to the next one and kiss her and no one says anything. Champion AND the Pimp of Kirkwall?
-Summary-
This game is everything DA1 was only better. The quests and characters are slightly lacking, but that doesn't take away from all the reasons I listed above. Buy this game, revel in it's glory, and pee in your pants after fighting your first battle and feeling like Chuck Norris with a blade.
**Post Review Edit**
Forgot to mention a few things.
-I don't know if this was true in DA1, but you can just hit R and it will run to the body and auto loot for you, which saves time.
-Friendly Tip: Get 2 warriors in your party and have them both use Rally at different intervals. Then have a mage use Haste as often as possible. Your party members will never be low on mana/stamina and everyone is 30% faster.
-Usually, the way back is right next to you after a quest so you don't have to run alllllll the way back down the hill/trail/dungeon, which saves more time.
-Sandal. Is. Awesome.