How has EA improved the game since the last outing?
First off, the graphic engine has had an overhaul and looks much better than previous games, the mapping and skins used for the characters make them realistic enough for you to instantly recognise them. The atmosphere is definitely Harry Potter-esque and fans will enjoy the game. And the sound is extremely good.
But.....
Those where the positives, now the negatives. EA somehow decided to not match the lipsynching to the speech used in the game, whether this was a cunning plan to use independent mouth movements for all languages of the game to spend less time trying to match lipsynching with the speech I don't know, but it certainly seems that way. It is annoying and a bit off putting to see characters moving their mouths with nothing to say :P
Another thing is the game becomes tedious as it is just constant fighting and fighting and fighting... Yes the combat is a bit more relaxed this time around and could easily be ported for a Multiplayer Map Spell Fest, which sadly the game lacks, but the combat becomes far far far too repetitive and you rely constantly in ducking for cover or if your brave fire off a few spells and immediately hold the space button down to shield yourself.
The AI for Hermoine and Ron become a bit too dumb, shooting through hills doesn't work and they will not find the best path in a combat situation to find the best angle to cast spells at foes, this makes them a hindrance rather than a help during these times.
And the long drawn out fights when members of the Death Eaters apparate in the area from all angles become tedious when you have no idea how long you have to continue to fight for, and hardly any notification to let you know that you are doing what your supposed to be doing. So you will be in those long fights and wonder... "Did I forget to do something?" so off you go retracting your steps only to find out you were doing the right thing and it has reset the fight and you have to fight for longer again when you return to the key area you left.
If the developers were to have put in puzzles of some form it would have broken the monotonous flow of combat that all levels seem to be designed for.
And the collectable items are mostly useless, Potterwatch recordings are quite fun and enjoyable and match the mood of the game, but the 2 newspapers you can collect are really badly boring, just showing text is not that great, why no Harry Potter-esque newspapers with moving pictures? At least they would have been better to look at than text.
But at least the game does follow the story well, but overall EA have failed again at another Harry Potter game, more eye candy than enjoyable content I am afraid people. Fans will love it, casual players on a whim may get bored with it... and no Multiplayer action??? Oh EA you missed the boat severely.
So 6.5/10 is a fair score.