I can't believe I pre-ordered this game, seriously
I was so hyped to get this game on my hands, oh, it really felt good, but oh surprise, at the beginning of the game the bad graphics were showing up, and by bad I mean, REAL BAD graphics, damnit they look worse than the DA:O ones, but okay graphics aren't everything, right?, let's see, let's go with the dialogue, what can I say..oh yeah..IT WAS MUTILATED, the dialogue isn't the same anymore, it lacks that "magic" that Dragon Age: Origins had, please do not buy this game for the dialogue nor its story, it's like the lead writer was smoking weed, no not even that, looks like his baby wrote it, that's right, it sucks and I won't stop saying so!, now for the quests, they are weak in dialogue nor story like I said before, they are boring and have no action at all.....they suck..

Now for the "sex" scenes, I can't believe bioware did this to Dragon Age 2, I can't even speak to someone without having the "sex dialogue " option showing up every instant, on males and females, what the hell?!, THIS IS NOT DRAGON AGE NOR THIS IS NOT A VALID DRAGON AGE SEQUEL, I demand my money back, but sadly I can't do so, huh? oh well

That's it, I'm so angry right now because I can't believe I bought this game...sheesh..I REALLY HOPE IT GETS BETTER BUT IT HAS BEEN OVER 9 HOURS OF GAMEPLAY AND IT STILL SUCKS.… Expand

Trash for 60$. How can they call it an "rpg" ? Better spend money on a game rather buying reviews! 1 score for not trivia scenario, other parts of game doesn't deserve more than 0

It's not a game. It's a disaster. The biggest disappointment of the year. Boring combat, boring dialogs, version 1.0 is completely raw (as example: impossibility to save a game - cool, ain't it?)...

This game to me was a waste of money, it lacked everything good from DA:O, the plot wanders to much and the way they tie it all together is terrible. It seemed like they took an almost unimportant thing that you can forget for a time and used it to tie the whole thing up. The game would have been better served starting in the last act and going into something epic from there.

DA:O was not a bad game, even the good i think. I was hoping that DA2 will be even better - I even made â

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Сх Expand

Horrible. port of console with average graphics and poor level design. Fast and easy combat where enemies popping everywhere. I finished this game and its really disappointing again Origins. I hope that DA3 will be much better

Dragon Age II is supposedly the sequel of DA O but it lacks all the traits that made DA O such a great game. First of all DA II is too linear because all the different options of DA O have been reduced to good-neutral-evil, while many your choice doesn't even matter because the result will be the same. The characters are simpler, thus less interesting. The battles are too simple and some times comparable to the complexity of games like...Pokemon.… Expand

Grim, dark, bad. The graphics would have looked shameful five years ago; the writing reads like fanfiction by pre-teens, and the less said of the gameplay, the better. Dragon Age: Origins was mediocre, but DA2 has truly bested it in all departments, descending to a whole new level of unacceptably AWFUL.

DIFFICULTY:
Played this game on hard and challenge was nice, tho it was what I'd expect only from normal. Even worse lately started a nightmare play and found how though this game is with friendly fire when camera is so low and you go a whirlwind killing two companions who suddenly got on your back. Redeem items/ DLC kills this game by swiftly powering up character, lowering not that high difficulty, tho at least this time i didn't get annoying guy with big Exclamation Mark telling me to buy DLC to unlock his adventure.

COMBAT:
Combat is fast paced, loosely tactical based but to be honest i was glad to play rogue moving back and forth since I'd die of boredom playing mage just standing like a tower and auto-attacking whole time while waiting for cooldowns (tho gets slightly better with more spells). Wave format was more annoying than anything else since it didn't allow to properly plan for usage of high cooldown abilities especially Taunt-like. On other hand re-positioning mages after each new group spawned was sometimes required but annoying, even more on nightmare. Tactics were very useful tho sometimes i wished there would be "Turn off all tactics" UI button so i could micromanage team better on especially challenging encounters without turning them off 1 by 1. Also found them lacking especially in "positioning" department like go to biggest group of mobs and taunt or stay away from boss at max range, and my favorite move out of fire/spell.
Force effect is very nice addition making combat more real and i only wish i could exploit it more.
Character development:
Tree's are nice and with nice synergy but sometimes it's hard to do proper build with all those requirements. By far worst one was rogue tree one requiring to take 3 skill of which only 1 can be active at a time only to improve one we really want. Overall was happy with trees and choices even tho i still don't find use for some of them.
Attributes on other hand were total disappointment being forced to basically max 2 of them to wear armors made character customization hard to say the least. At end game my rogue was fast, deadly and very dead whenever he drew attention since i didn't spend enough points in stamina. Situation gets more tricky for Player Character when companions only have to spend points in one stat or some times 0 to use equipment.

COMPANIONS:
I liked most of them and found most of them useful at one time or another. Their stories where nice, and only added to their appeal. Only thing i didn't like was low choice of them or rather thanks to their sole focus specializations makes it very hard to play them differently or create dream team. At one point choices i made almost made me loose vital teammate whom i'd not be able to replace.

GAMEPLAY:
Time play somehow vital role in this game where some quests can be done at night where others only in day time, switching between both is easy but u somehow detached from time. Best one was "come meet me tonight" and then i went on a 2 week trip (lore wise) and yet person was still waiting not annoyed by my coming late. Sometime i felt like i did a lot of quests and yet only 24 hours passed.
Also people you meet on street also feel somehow detached telling about events long passed as if they happened yesterday.
There was plentiful of quests even tho annoyingly usually go to location you've already seen and kill, kill, kill and after killing all those minions kill boss or tell boss how you're in only for peaceful solution or to save them all from extermination. Still some quests were still nice. Other annoying thing was handing completed quest, going back home to grab new letter and back to same quest giver for next one as if he couldn't tell me from start. Last item it's nice that they tell you which quest ends chapter, but why didn't they do same with last one...
Dialog system is on one hand good you exactly know whether you'll answer "Diplomatically", "Ruthlessly" or "Ironically" on other hand you don't really choose what you'll really tell so why bother with text lines in first place just place 4 icons (one more for investigate) and be done about it and don't give me illusion of proper dialog.
Crafting system is great and feels somehow right.

STORY
Story at first is very chaotic and then gets cleared only to plunge you straight back into chaos, and at the end you are Champion whatever it really means. It's nice to see choices you made at one time explode in your face later on, tho I feel somehow cheated by dialog system. SUMMARY:
Very nice fantasy themed RPG I only wish it wasn't branded continuation to completly different game I felt dragon age origins was.

I liked: Story, Companions, Boss fights
I disliked: Dialog System, Wave combat, Time detachment, Repeatable zones, DLC making game easier.
Could be better: Attribute distribution, Tactics system… Expand

This game, is the worst game....EVER.

Basically you take a decent game like Dragon Age: Origins, then rub Electronic Arts **** all over it. Then you hired **** developers that cater to casual 12 year olds. THEN you only worry about sales, and not the quality of the product.

Thats how you make a **** game. Thats how you kill a good developer like Bioware. 4.0? 4.0.

I would like this game a lot more if they hadn't put Dragon Age on the cover. I do like the new art work that has gone into it but the game feels a lot different. Side character development doesnâ

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As an old school crpg player I originally bought Dragon Age Origins due to Biowares steadfast mantra that the Dragon Age franchise will be a resurrection of the crpg genre. So I bought Origins, it was pretty good with some flaws. Figuring Biowares next entry in the series would clean it up and be at BG NWN levels of quality I continued to support them. Then DA2 was announced and the first game play was shown. From the increasingly Dynasty Warriors esq combat, to the unbelievably horrible graphics and art style changes. We were told to wait by Bioware and their more rabid fanbase, that I couldn't form an negative opinion because I haven't played it. Well its out now, and its just as big a pile of mediocrity as I suspected it would be. The Dialog is for one, is utterly terrible. Some of the best gems are "Im Hungry" and "I want to be the Dragon!". The Dialog wheel is also another terrible "INNOVATION!" thrown into Dragon Age due to the success of MICHAEL BAY PRESENTS MASS EFFECT! Not only do you not know what you will say with the wheel sometimes what you say is not at all what the words are on the wheel. With the addition of only 3 options with Upper Right being NOBLE GOOD BRIGHT, middle JOKE LOL JOKE JOKE JOKE. and bottom I KILL PUPPIES FOR SATAN BECAUSE!. To go along with that you have tiny pictures of the tone of what you will say. Red for Renegade....errr, green for good, and purple for idiot. The graphics and art style. While im not one to put much in graphics a game needs to at least have a good art style and use its assets well. I actually wouldn't care about this if the game had any GOOD aspects. Sadly it does not. Bioware said that the original Dragon Age didn't have an art identity and for the sequel they wanted to make it so different that you would immediately say THATS DRAGON AGE! Good idea right? Certainly. Except they already accomplished this. Very few games do Dark Medieval Fantasy anymore. DAO was one who did and it looked gorgeous on the PC. Which is where the game belongs. So now DA2 gets a new art style ok im down with it until. Its generic WOWesq light colors with terrible terrible exaggeration and jaggies. Combat. One look on youtube for Dragon Age 2 Combat will show you what I mean. lets just say AWESOME BUTTON is not awesome. This is just scratching the surface. All this combined with EA banning people from even playing because of posting negatively about DA2 on Biowares forums, along with Biodevs saying any negative review is some magic **** raid, along with EA slipping in securom on your machine without telling you "which is highly illegal I might add" along with constant locks and bans for anyone who post constructive criticism. All makes for one sour second entry into the series. OH GOD NO! STANLEY WOO HAS FOU This meta critic review is inappropriate. lock down End of Lineâ… Expand

Dragon Age 2 recycles the same environments over and over to artificially inflate the game's length. You play a static character devoid of personality, an abrupt change from the engaging Shepherd character from Mass Effect fame. I hate comparing a new release to a developer's previous output (preferring to judge exclusively based on the game in question), but this game is a complete insult to any game Bioware has previously done. The company turned from an elite CRPG powerhouse to another corporate whorehouse developer with this title, and it really hurts. I am hoping that Dragon Age 2 is an aberration, and the Old Republic/Mass Effect 3 sustain Bioware's typically high degree of quality.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Dragon Age II is everything DA: O should have been... if BioWare had intended to make Origins a complete and horrible failure. Bethesda really should have known better with titles under their belt such as Mass Effect, in the end their sequals fall short such as prequels to sequels generally do. In retrospect I would actually give this game a 5.5/10 but I'm taking a stand they must have spend 2 days developing this game I'm taking a stand no more bad games!… Expand

"As a Player of Baldurs Gate 1 &2 , Planescape Torment , Morrowind and all the other RPGÃ

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The game kept hardly anything from original origins... there just seemed to me more awakening, but not even awakening solved alot of questions in origin. theres also the fact that you only see flemeth twice in the whole game, why is she even in the game? (aside from travel twards kirkwall) What was the point in the long run??? What of morrigan's child and my warden? Seeing alistar was about the only satisfying thing in the game.

Then theres just only Kirkwall?? In first da there was much more cities and places to go to... limiting everything to kirkwall just seemed so stale. I half expected they would keep that map or at least make traveling seamless but guess not.

Also the major thing that bothered me was how during import it said all of these things, shale recovered, amaranthine saved, urn of sacred ashes, connor's status, and most importantly my warden went threw the portal with morrigan... yet in NONE of this changed anything in da2. Flemeth only seen twice... pitiful. She seemed like a major story element too. saved by her, then released from amulet then thats it??

The game should not even be called dragon age 2. Should just be called "game #456: hawke" because it has nothing to do with dragon age.… Expand

Oh my... I have never thought I had to write that...

RPGs... I did em all... from the first days with my Commodore Amiga (Bard's Tale, some AD&D RPGs), to PC games (also AD&Ds, Might and Magics, Ultima Underworld, those from Interplay, and all the classic Biowares, and Elder Scrolls Arena, Daggerfall and so on...), so I claim to have a vast knowledge about how RPGs were and how they are now. I found some better, some not so good, but most of them were quite solid RPGs.

It's of course a matter of taste, but to me, RPG means story, interactions and customizing the characters. DAO is already streamlined compared to the Elder Scrolls Universe, but still classic RPG because of all those things that are still possible, and probably one of the best story and especially dialogues (which results in a great overall atmosphere) I have ever seen in an RPG.

Although, even in DAO I miss being able to jump, or to access all those places that can be seen, from that point it's a bit limited, but still acceptable to me as there are other unique features.

Now DA2... I decided to first have a look, so visited a friend, and had a look, and have to say, I won't buy that game. I don't hate it, but I am not into Action-Adventures. Opponents spawning out of nowhere, 2 metres jumps in full armor, no thank you... to me that is more comic style gaming, jump and run even a bit... no, that's not RPG anymore to me.

Flemeth designed like a mixture of Manga and Domina, no, not my taste.

Not being able to equip my party... that is a no go for me in an RPG. I mean, I love to spend hours with so callled unimportant details like trying out clothes, armors, crafting, making potions... whatever. DA2 delivers nothing. A fast paced action game, not bad by itself, but not worthy of being named Dragon Age or even being regarded as its successor.

Some good things still, some nice dialogues, but it feels more like an interactive movie... hey of course not to the extent I had with Dragon's Lair on my good old Amiga... but still, too dictated for me. Everything is kind of chewed before we get it to eat.

I don't hate this game, but I don't think it is wise to distribute it as the successor of DAO, and besides, Bioware to me was a synonym for great RPGs. Now, that does not seem to apply anymore. A pity.

Per se there is nothing wrong in offering variations or different style games within the same universe... other companies did that in the past too, Bethesda had some spin-offs (Elder scrolls series vs Battlespire, Redguard), 3DO had them (Might and Magic series vs Heroes), Origin (Ultima, and then Ultima underworld was different), and some more.

They could have opened a new spin off series, like DA Action Adventures or whatever, then the players can decide for themselves whether to try it out or not, without being fooled with wrong expectations, rising up when hearing the name Dragon Age, or even Dragon Age 2, which implies the continuation of the 1st game.

Dragon Age, to me, stood for RPG, like Elder Scrolls does, different, but great. I don't want to see an action adventure under the Elder Scrolls series label, and I didn't want to see that with DAO.

It happened, and I think they didn't do themselves a favour. For me, this series ended with DAO, and will start again, when they pick up on what they built with DAO. Whether it was Bioware's fault, or EA's, it is an enourmous damage that has been done to Bioware's reputation, in rushing out such a game, and pretending it is the successor of DAO.… Expand

http://www.videogamessuck.com/review437.html

^BESTREVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dragon Age 2 is one of the worst sequels I have played in a long time. Laidlaw should be fired for this terrible mess of a game. He claims he is aiming to make the game more accessible to a wider audience but has instead alienated the original fanbase. Bioware will not get another $ from me until they prove themselves as a tier one developer again and not some EA lackey churning out cash grabbing ****… Expand

I haven't yet played this game, and I honestly don't know if it's good or bad. I'm posting this to warn everyone who sees it not to trust the average user score, as obviously one person or a small group has been posting multiple ratings to bring down the score. My evidence for this:

1. The ridiculous number of ratings. The game has been out for three days, and has more ratings for the PC version than the original PC DA has, which has been out for about a year and a half. It has over twice as many ratings as the PC version of Black Ops. It has (as another pointed out) over six times as many ratings as WoW: Cataclysm. 2. The very similar writing style in evidence between a great many reviews.
3. The great disparity between the user rating here and on other sites. Gamespot has an average user rating of 7.1, IGN has 6.7, Game Informer has a 6.0. The 4.0 here is too far out of line to be believable. Whoever is doing this, please, get a life. If you're seriously THAT mad because a game doesn't fit your traditional PC-centric mold, and you just HAVE to bring down that average score on Metacritic, you really need to develop some other interests. Seriously, it's unhealthy.… Expand

Dragon Age 2 has been simplified to appeal to a wider audience. The dialogue wheel from Mass Effect (good, bad and cheeky choice), action-combat, less customization (no race selection, limited party equipment control). Instead of improving the game they dumbed it down. It's also obvious that Dragon Age 2 had a short development cycle. Less play time, recycled environments, small game world, even the story is below Bioware standards. What a disappointment to true role playing fans!… Collapse

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The Dragon Age franchise has been tossed into the corporate machinery and spat out as a bruised and crippled shell of its former self. The game manages to deliver a thoroughly mediocre and disappointing experience to both RPG and casual gaming fans alike.

The combat could possibly be the largest flaw with the game, however it is but one of many large flaws. Many skills and abilities present in DA: O which made the game an overly tactical, challenging and rewarding experience have been removed in favor of more 'exciting and fast paced' combat. In Dragon Age 2's case 'exciting and fast paced' equates into the mindless ability bashing. Combat now relies heavily upon 'wave' mechanics. Where instead of individual mobs of enemies the player will be bombarded by wave after wave of enemy turning an epic skirmish into a tedious exercise of endurance. Most side quests are trivial and generic which furthermore offer no further insight into the game world and hold little other responsibility other than keeping the player distracted for a few extra hours collecting X number of items..

The visuals have undergone an upheaval, yet surprisingly manages to look worse than its predecessor.
The combat now resembles something out of a Devil May Cry game, rather than the style set in DA:O. The visceral and realistic style of Origins now replaced with an over sensationalized gratuitous flood of warrior aerobatics and bloody explosions. Many Caves, mountains, roads used again and again presumably due to constraints imposed by the soulless suits over in EA pushing for a speedy release and a fast cash-in. Dragon Age: Origins was a modern day throwback to classic RPG games: It incorporated engaging Tactical gameplay , interesting characters and appropriate use of dialog selection and an immersive fantasy setting imbued with a touch of gritty realism to provide a satisfying fantasy experience. Because of this the game was critically acclaimed and sold very well.
Now letâ… Expand

Wow. What a disappointment. Everything EA touches goes south. EA ruined the single greatest developer ever in Origin, then proceeded to torpedo the second greatest in Bioware. DA:O was a very good, but not quite greate fantasy CRPG. It needed some tuning a few areas, there were too many useless talents in combat and some of the were down right silly such as the rebel yell that knocked back opponents?!? Do you have a fog horn for a voice??? However, overall it was quite enjoyable and I ended up replaying 6 times. Awakenings was a glimpse into what DA was to become. A lazy bug ridden mess. With great trepidation, I purchased DA II. What a mistake that was. I want my $60.00 back. It's like EA took the worst of Dragon Age, and merged it with the worst of Mass Effect and greated a mess of a game. I don't see it really appealling the action gamer and they have completely alientated RPG fans. You are lead around by the nose, there really isn't any decision process on what to do next. You don't have a choice. Lazy reused levels as even the most ardent fans have pointed out really detract. The story is not all that compelling. I'm OK with something other than the Warden story. That played itself out. But the DAII story just wasn't something I can get into. Why should I care about some local Champion? Why not the tail of the garbage collector? Gee I got some great stuff today. Yawn. It seems like a half finished game that in order to get the full experience, you just need to buy endless DLC. I don't mind DLC but don't take so much out of the game, in order to get folks to buy more DLC. You know what? I won't be buying anything. Period. The new graphics are improved if you don't use NVidia. However, the new art style is cartoonish and silly. Romances? Come on? What a joke. After one wink, the character is ready to boink the protagonist? Doesn't Issabella wear pants? What kind of a pirate runs around in just a shirt and panties? What is with all the oversexed women? Was the core audience 12 year old boys? What really ruined it for me was the combat. DA:O needed a bit of tweaking not a do over. What is with all the twirlly animations? Warriors rocketing around the screen leaving SMOKE TRAILS? WTF? Rogues jumping 30 feat through the air like a kangaroo on steriods? Endless waves of enemies simply appearing out of nowhere? Super Ninja Gaiden. Bad. Really bad. The lack of equiping companions, why then get all the loot if all I can do is sell it? Dumded down to the realm of pointless. For DAIII is the only thing I have to do is fork over $60.00 while EA continually spams me for DLC dollars? The whole game was played on auto pilot. I kept pushing buttons but I'm still waiting for the awsome to happen. Bioware has lost a loyal fan. There is no excuse, other than a money grab for this mess. No redeeming qualities. If I could get a refund I would.… Expand

Utter garbage inasmuch as it actually inspired me to signup in order to post my views. This is truly a shame, given the expectations built up with DA:O -- What is hilarious to note is all the major review companies noting `once you get past the..' OR `compare to DA:O this is much worse BUT' and awarding ~80, tbh these look like paid for reviews in order to drive sales. DA2 is awful c.f. DA:O.
END OF LINE.… Expand

Epic Fail. Terrible game.Old graph, many bugs, Not RPG, but fighting slasher!! Total trash. Omg and this company create godly Dragon Age: Origins ? I dont beleive =(

Pros: Combat system improved more blood Slicing through enemies is effortless better graphics (depending on certain circumstances) Con: Everything else sucks No story Awkward conversations Repeated dungeon maps Companions have no personality Stuck in the same city Game-play was very short for the price of 60$ I didn't want to romance anyone because I find none of my companions attractive The story is fixed and your choices doesn't make any difference
The epilogue was stupid. I'd have a small scene where i get to read about what happen to everyone and everything than to listen to varric acknowledging that my hero is somewhere with his/her lover

Overall : worth less than 10$… Expand

"Darker, sexier, prettier" were the advertising words for this sequel. Unfortunately the ONLY thing that actually has got better (in some parts of the game) is combat dynamics. Story line itself is very narrow comparing to original DAO, darkness has been replaced with fierce button smashing combating and then sex... well that's completely REMOVED. Okay, you actually can get to kiss someone and invoke some dirty dialogue, but anyone who has actually played DAO will be very disappointed. There's no passion, no mature decisions to be made and absolutely nothing to see in terms of mature gaming. It looks like this sequel is more targeted to 13 years old console gamers than to people who actually played and enjoyed the original Dragon Age.

The only thing that could save the game amongst DAO players would be fast introduction of expansions and toolset, that would make possible to enchange game in mentioned areas. Without that, I think the game is doomed and will only result financial loss and more sadly, ruin the name of Dragon Age.… Expand

Not the best Bioware game. Im not a hardcore player myself, but after 5 or 6 hours of gameplay I was kinda sick of copy&paste caves and visiting same locations over and over again. Combat system is also weak (press "1-9" to kill, repeat 20 times thanks to the constant respawns). The game from "complete & forget" category

Best combat ever? did they change the difficulty to hard or nightmare. It's so unbalance. In casual and normal you dont have trouble to deal with the army of enemy (around 15 - 20 guys in all fight). But in hard mode it's sucks! with poor cooldown potion system and no zoom out camera. poorest combat system ever.
I expect to meet this number of enemy (in every battle) in dynasty warior but not dragon age.… Expand

Why the lack of interesting and diverse locations? Why one repeating cave and houses over and over again? Why waves of enemies spawning from the ceiling? Why the brutal requirements in DX11 in 5 year old looking game? Why no interesting and surprising puzzles? Why many other things i don't want to even remember? If it wasn't for DA:O and if it wasn't Bioware I would give 7 points but like this i fell it deserves 5 points max.
Btw. I didn't like many things in DA:O (skill system, class imbalances) but it was still a pearl in comparison to this game.

PS: Why so high scores from magazines? Does EA pay that well? It was the same with NFS:Shift and I completely understand people who give 0 points as a defense against so exaggerated ratings.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. DA2 just didnâ… Expand

A truly awful game. Absolutely no storyline whatsoever, you are literally cast into town and told to do side quests for the first 13 hours. Combat is the same boring fights over and over again, with multiple waves of mobs spawning in EVERY SINGLE fight. They reuse the same exact maps over and over for different places, they couldn't even be bothered to design different, unique locations. Most of the characters are either annoying or boring, not that it would matter if they were interesting or not because you can't even interact with them save for a few occasions. I thought that Bioware was going downhill before, but holy crap this is just an absolute garbage of a game.… Expand

Absolutely PISSED at bioware... i absolutely loved DA:O and ME:1, but come on. what hell was ME:2 about? choices didn't carry over. story very lackluster. but the combat. was easily 2x better, after beating it i was left empty and dissapointed. but that was ok since DA:O came out and had me spending hours on it even replaying it 3 times as each of the classes... ME moved to the back of my mind. i was counting the days DA:2 came out, replayed Origin another couple of times when DA:2 was nearing release. played the demo and was slightly nervous... completely revamped combat and the **** ME wheel in it? uh oh it's ME:2 all over again... and sure enough. **** combat requiring NO thought at all. i find myself spamming attack as opposed to setting up chokepoints/traps/mage combos (where are the mage combos btw?!?!? were they COMPLETELY taken out or do i need to spend more time away from the attack spam to look more into this?) i've yet to get to the deep roads and i don't even wanna play anymore. i see NO references to my grey warden other than Isabella and a drunken allistair (who was my FAVORITE character, cheesball lines not withstanding he was the best tank i could hope to make) no thought to dialogue... dont even know my followers so if i pick a dialogue option they may not agree with there is NO hint to it other then when the damn dialogue is closed i see a "Aveline +5 rivalry" wtf?!?! sooo the **** doesnt like saving a cave full of innocent mages?!?!? im pissed... bioware took all my hopes and loyalty and took a massive **** on them. well, if they REFUSE to cater to the true fans. **** it i will no longer purchase a bioware game. i sincerely hope you guys follow suit, a massive refusal to buy their **** seems to be the only way to get them to make a real game. well bethesda i hope you keep it real i am willing to look past New vegas in hopes of the new ES. screw ME and **** DA… Expand

Dragon Age II feels like it want to statisfy the customers basic needs but nothing more. You can buy it and may get up to eight hours of basic entertaiment. However, it's not enought for me. This game doesn't look finished after one and an half year. It hast a great story development but all ends up in some mess of trivial stuff. Freedom of choice is only an illusion - nearly no one of the huge ammount of descissions you doing have any effect. So, why a 3 out of 10 when it is 'basically statisfieng'? Because i think Bioware doing things in a bad way. Someone there may've got that you only have to do 'the basic things' to get the customers money, but it's the wrong way. I really wish that the next Bioware product get the time it needs.… Expand

I've now logged in over 25hrs into Dragon Age 2 and am simply not impressed. Everything about Dragon Age: Origins was absolutely epic, the story, the characters, the combat etc. DA2 changed a lot of what I loved about DA:O. I know there are a lot of folks clamoring about people giving this game poor reviews because it isn't a real DA:O sequel, but I'm not sure I fully understand this. DA:O was excellent, the formula worked IMO, I just don't understand why they changed so much. I'm a HUGE Bioware fan, so giving this game a poor review wasn't easy. The story is very week in my opinion. I feel no attachment what so ever to the main character and sup[porting NPCS, they seem extremely generic. In DA:O the work hung in the balance and you were at the center. With DA2 it just doesn't feel the same at all. The two launch DLC, which I feel is a total scam are absolutely not worth it. I have to pay to respec my character? What a load of junk.

Save yourself the cash and wait for a few of the soon to be released RPGs. DA2 misses the mark by a long shot in my book. And don't be seduced by the "professional" reviews. They all seem infatuated with the new combat system, which I feel makes this game so much worse.… Expand

They sold the Baldur's gate soul of this game to make a poor playing Mass Effect Fantasy game. While not unplayable the game makes you feel you wasted all you time in Dragon Age Origins by bot allowing character carry over. Worse yet Bioware took the highly unethical practice of having their own employee rate this game perfectly (check the news stories). Given Bioware has lost its moral compass under EA any redeeming elements of this game are not worth rewarding the now soulless EA/Bioware with a purchase. Wait for the bargain bin.… Expand

Gosh, Bioware, why did you destroyed such a great game? Mass Effect 2 can never be Dragon Age 2. I hope youll learn and make a better DA3 with same complexity and good graphics that Origins has.

Terrible gameplay, outdated graphics, underwhelming story, the if you want play DA... go play Dragon Age: Origins. This is not a sequel, is the end of the dragon age series.

this game is a joke!!!! and seeing the high reviews from reviewers makes me sick!!!! you should be ashamed of yourselves!!!! Terrible game on all platforms. 2003 graphics, mediocre gameplay, underwhelming story. Just go replay Dragon Age: Origins or Neverwinter Nights 2 instead and avoid this disaster. Spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, MY ASS!

an absolute disappointment. from begining to end it is far inferior to DA:O and is a complete failure on bioware's part. I hope that DA3 fixes what this game broke because the world of Thedas is a cool one

After Dragon Age: Origins I was so hyped and wanted to get my hand in this game. And what a waste of time that waiting was. It's not a good game. Almost everything that was good in Origins are thrown out of the window and what we get is a generic, action rpg for consoles. The story is horrible, they use the same caves and areas over and over again. And we cant even leave the god damn city! It's horrible, dont touch this piece of garbage!… Expand

Dragon age 2 should be called, "Assassin's Creed 3: The Dragon Age edition." If you are looking for the same great experience of an epic, sprawling RPG, then look elsewhere. They removed any sense of epic struggle, moral ambiguity in making large and important decisions, and perhaps more damning, they removed the element of exploration that is so prevalent in many RPGs. Instead, we are given an ultra-linear story, one city to explore (the whole game mind you, just like assassin's creed, but actually assassin's creed has more than one city!) and absolutely no exciting pacing. By the middle of the game you are utterly sick of running menial tasks. There is no sense of a greater purpose like there was in the original Dragon Age: Origins. On top of this, there is clear evidence that Bioware was cutting corners any place it could just to save time and money. Environments are repeated sometimes between 4-5 times, but are supposed to be completely different areas. You'll think to yourself, "Hmph, I've been here before!" quite a few times. If you loved Dragon Age: Origins, I can imagine you'll buy the game anyway, but don't expect the same experience; it's gone.… Expand

My previous score was 2, but I have to go lower. Once you try to play a solo run, you will recognize how bad and broken the combat system is. Dodging attacks is basically going 1m to the side and that's It. I also found out this way that enemy archers can shoot through ANYTHING, another slap in the face. Because of the DLC items, you're almost immortal. And this was on Nightmare, I might add. Boss fights are a joke. After the I. Act, I didn't have any will to continue playing this game, and I probably never will.… Expand

This game is a complete and utter failure compared to the first game, and its expansion.
3/4 of the maps in this game are all completely recycled. The battle system is fast, and enemies spawn in swarms out of nowhere. The first game was focused more on taking down powerful enemies with tactics. This game seems more focused on making things look shiny and appealing. Although the characters are much more interesting and stylized in this title, it doesn't make up for the lack of characters and new areas. The plot line always winds up leading to the same conclusion, and a majority of the game is spent doing side quests. This is a one time only sort of experience. I couldn't stand making a second character for any reason. This game seems very similar to the story of Kotor 2, in which Bioware rushed the game, throwing it out there incomplete. It would be acceptable if this title were perhaps not called Dragon Age II, but something else, like "Dragon Age: Kirkwall Hero" or something along those lines, because I personally feel that this game does not deserve the title of a direct sequel.… Expand

A good stand alone game, but doesn't live up to Dragon Age Origins. The story suffers the most, as the characters are far less interesting the crux of the plot considerably less epic and the narrative consistency of the world has fallen by the wayside. The inventory interface is terrible the DLC invalidates the need for any equipment for the first act and the dialog tree is irrelevant. It's still worth buying, but only after the price has dropped a little.… Expand

Good Rpg but not great like Dragon Age: Origins was.
Few locations, poor customization for companions, too short but good story plot.
I've finished and un-installed it......

After having had beat Baldur's gate before trying out this game, I can only think to myself how hard Bioware has fallen.Depth exchanged for puerile romance and tasteless violence.

Dragon Age 1 was my favourite game of the last year, this sequel is my least favourite so far. The game mechanics and dialogue has been dumbed down to the point that its just too boring and monotonous to play.

I played DA:1 for about 60+ hours without once getting bored. DA:2 gets very boring, very quickly. Like others have said, this is more like a Mass Effect action game than an RPG with any depth. I've been a bit fan of Bioware games in the past, I hope they dont ruin the next Elder Scrolls game as much as Dragon Age has taken a step backwards.… Expand

I don't care what any Bioware employee posting on here says, if you want to capitalize and maximize your profit, then this does a good job of that. It does not do a good job at being the game everyone was expecting, it just doesn't. But whose fault is it anyway? YOURS, not the consumers, because the consumers didn't make the game. They buy, and they choose weather they want to buy it and play it or not. And if you think its "individual opinion" then take a look at all the negative reviews on here, I don't think it's individual anymore buddy. I thank those who lost their money to this game for warning others about it, it's consumer rights, and the consumer should be able to protect themselves form these kinds of scams, because it is their hard earned money. With that said, this game is bad. The graphics are terrible, low resolution, no color whatsoever. These graphics are like the kind you would find in Warcraft III (2002-03) and DX11 doesn't make a difference. Story is bad, no development, no character intros, doesn't make any sense, hard to follow, too many cut scenes with more of the same. Hack and slash...rinse, repeat. game ends. bad.Don't buy. And if you do you just wasted 40 bucks, and I am sorry, sucks for you.… Expand

This game takes away many of the components that made Dragon Age Origins' such a compelling RPG. The gameplay and story have all been turned inside-out.

The combat has been dumb downed in a way that strategy is not much of a requirement anymore to go through many of the game's battles. I've not found a need to even touch the TACTICS system of the game, even on hard, and possibly nightmare. It's mostly just pressing the "R" key, watch pretty visuals and see things blow up. Instead of the strategic element we are so familiar with, Bioware gives us a much more fast-paced and more fluid, action-oriented fights that last much shorter than Origins'. This is still no saving grace to the brainless combat that Bioware thought would be a better alternative.

The story is where things really start taking a toll for the worse. Origins' had such a compelling story. You travel around Fereldan recruiting and getting aid from different armies to stop an incoming blight. In this game, you go around doing chores for people in the city. A step downwards, considering it was made by Bioware, the same company that brought us classics like Baldur's Gate and Mass Effect. Shame on you, Bioware. It's a decent game at best. There's no real thought needed in this game, but it's fast-paced combat could interest newer players for awhile.… Expand

This game is DAO, but dumbed down and casualized. Would've rated it a 4, but BioWare + EA's ridiculous response to the criticism surrounding this game warrants a zero.

I would much rather replay Dragon Age Origins than have spent money on something that is not as well polished as I have come to expect. It's not horribad, it's just not what I wanted. Your mileage may vary.

DA2 is a game I wanted to like. I still do in some ways. It's not a BAD game - just disappointingly average.
For one, it doesn't feel like a true RPG anymore - the whole flow and feel of the gameplay is completely different. It is clear that in order to expand the audience, Bioware is abandoning old-school RPG's.

While DA:O combat was a bit on the slow side, DA2 goes into the other extreme, with animations that are too fast and too ridiculous. Oversized weapons, combat moves that defy lore at every step and poor balance.
DA2 features lots of enemies that one can dispatch with ease, turning even abominations into wusses and throwing them at the player en masse.

Still, the setting is just as strong as it ever was, and it - and the characters - remain the biggest appeal of DA2. It's only a shame that Bioware created a setting I'd adore to explore, only not in their game.

For those who love old-school, true RPGs - this game will be disappointing.
For those who like more action-oriented hack-and-slasher, this may be a good game.

Objectively, I'd rate it to be between the 4-9 range depending on your choice.… Expand

Playing this game is like having "just" sex with the same girl for more than 1 months. Boring.

That's your Waterloo, Bioware, Let's put down the hats.

This review isn't a complete one; I just want to inform potential buyers out there that DA2 isn't the train wreck most of the reviews make it seem. --First, the combat. It's not hack and slash! I have no idea where people are getting this from. Sure, it's easy on Normal, but so was BGII, NWN, NWN2, ME, ME2, DA:O.... get my point? They put hard and nightmare modes for sods like us that don't want to run through the game feeling like we're gods. On hard it is IMPOSSIBLE to make it through tough fights without tactics and micromanagement. Enough said.
--Second, the story(telling). Look, we've heard it all before. Guy grows up saves the world/city/girl. If you're going to slam an RPG's story, you don't want to be playing RPGs. Now, the storytelling in DA2 is a different matter. I for one love the, oh, 12 or so different choices available as responses, throughout a conversation. It really opens up the dialoge and the way the story unfolds. I've tried a bunch of differnt options out, and while sometimes it's tough to mix and match, you definitely get variety. Plus, it's nice to hear a few sentences spout from Hawke's mouth when you click a one line option, especially when you're asking questions.
---Three, screw the graphics. Who cares, really. I've got DA2 running fine on my Dell XPS on the "low" settings, and it's not making me puke. That's good enough for me. Remeber the original Deus Ex? Those graphics blow, but the gameplay, story and lore still make it incredible today. ---Fourth, the character development is a lot better than Origins. I mean A LOT BETTER. Branching paths, requirements, difficult choices, tougher requirements, meaningful decisions. Bioware, keep this model! Use if for every game you have coming. I mean it! It's a nice balance between old school and modern role playing models. ---Fifth, everyone's complaining about the DLC. Yeah, I agree, Bioware has sold their soul. But it's not wrecking the game, and a huge chunk of it is free, so it's more like they're in purgatory. Don't boycott the game over it, but definitely write the developer. ---Sixth, I'd say currently the game's actually a solid 9, not a 10. I just wanted to get posted at the top. :~) Thanks for reading! Go rock the world!… Expand

Unfortunately I must admit .... disappointed, from DAO made â

To start, Dragon Age II is not actually bad enough to deserve the scores of 0-2 that many people are giving it. The problem is that it really is not very good either. People have come to expect a certain standard of quality from Bioware, and DA2 simply does not meet that standard.

Combat is horrible. In fact, it is probably DA2's worst flaw. On the recommended combat difficulty setting, playing the game feels disturbingly similar to watching a mediocre film. You spend the early levels of the game clicking a few buttons every 15-20 seconds. Groups of enemies never pose a serious threat, yet still live long enough to make combat tedious. Combat improves later, especially if you raise the difficulty, but it never reaches the tactical depth or difficulty offered frequently in its predecessor.

Dialogue is mediocre. There are fewer options than there were in Origins, the quality of the writing is surprisingly low for a Bioware title, and much of the voice-acting is disappointing.

The new art style is matter of taste I suppose, but I personally dislike it. To begin with, changing the appearances of various established creatures was in rather poor taste. The Qunari now resemble something from The Lower Planes while the Hurlocks are reminiscent of Skeletor. The "visceral" combat is simply preposterous. The amount of gore if you can even call it that is so exaggerated that it makes combat even less satisfying. My character's sword should not produce similar results to an airstrike.

As with the previous game, the graphics were mediocre while the musical score was quite good. It would hardly be fair to blame Bioware for the fact that certain people insist on selling and developing for six-year-old hardware that wasn't even all that it was made out to be on release. The problems with Nvidia cards are not so easily dismissed, however. There is a little thing called testing that is supposed to prevent little things like that. That being said, the game performs quite well on my modest dual-core ATI/AMD machine.

Overall, I would say that DA2 will be worth purchasing for fans of the first game when it sees a drop in price. Until then, it is not worth your time or money. As an RPG and a sequel, DA2 is mediocre at best.… Expand

I suggest you don't buy this game. It does so many things wrong it actually damages the rpg genre.
The game consists in following yellow markers on the mini map to complete "quests", knowing how to read is not really necessary to complete the game.
The story is very underwhelming and never motivates the player to keep going on. And it's quite short.
Aside from the deep roads and the city all game quests are done in the same 4-5 ambients recycled over and over again (A abandoned mansion, A creepy cellar, A natural cavern (the most used by far). and so on). It's a fraud.
The combat system is not too bad on hard difficulty if you cripple your party enough (i've played with no belts rings and amulets) and if you have a bad party setup. Otherwise it's too easy. Nightmare mode is not well though out and it's just annoying.

What I like about the game is the quest system. There should be more varied quests, but the fact that during the second act you face the consequences of the choices you made during act 1 is nice.
Companions are ok i guess, but I never cared much for any of them.

Suggestions for the future: - Playing an rpg should not be like walking along a corridor, it should be more open ended.
- Combat doesn't need to be frenetic. It can also be tactical or it can be both. Just no one wants a lackadaisical button-pressing. Gamers just need to have a fun and hard "nightmare mode".
- Final bosses should be more varied. For God sake there are billions of really original and fun fights in WoW's dungeons. Is it so hard to get some ideas from there? I liked the boss of the deep roads though.
- Itemization is not too bad, personally I like it if it's less streamlined with just a few really powerful items (not gamebreaking but with particular properties, like the "immune to flanking" amulet) dropped by really hard to beat enemies (think Final Fantasy secret bosses like Ozma, Dark Eons, Omega Weapon).
- Some say that a complex level-up and party personalization system scares away non-rpg players. There doesn't need to be one. The game can also be completely skill based.… Expand

this game for me was epic disappointment, Dragon age origin was to me the best pc rpg in the last 5 years., beat it 4 time with different MC. so when i hear of DA 2 i preorder it months be4 the release. and now i m loss for word over that my belove dragon age have been reduce to garbage. the menu was crap. there is no Pictures for the items so u can't tell was armor or weapon look like, the population of kirkwall was 90% non-interactive(you can't talk to them, they just standing there look pretty) the story was weak. you the dialogs don't make sense to the choice u choose, and the graphic is barely an improvement over the original. ......After browsing through most of reviewing site, i can honesty say I have lost faith in the professional reviewers. Bioware, you have lost 1 costumer here today, no more money out of my pocket for your products.… Expand

Having now played Dragon Age 2 for several days, and having seen the incredible hatred leveled against it, I feel I must write a review for this game. Story: First and foremost, the most important thing in any RPG: the story. DA2 plays less like a grand 'let's save the world' adventure and more like 'let's do some stuff in a fantasy setting'. Now you may see this as a negative critique, but it isn't. DA 2 takes the world, politics, races, and organizations that were all introduced in DA:O and makes you intimate with them. Very intimate. The story is told through a framed narrative, but I'm sure most of you are aware of this so let's move on. Back to the intimate part. The entirety of the game takes place in and around the city of Kirkwall, a city with a long and bloody history (but, hey, that's pretty must to be expected). You and your family flee there from Ferelden following the Blight, and you decide to stay there and gain fame and fortune. In the first act of the game (there are 3 in total) you must collect 50 gold in order to fund an expedition to the Deep Roads. That's it. No evil wizard trying to kill the king, no dragons attacking the castle, and no damsels in distress. Just do quests and get gold. I feel this lack of story direction is both the game's largest strength and greatest weakness.

RPGs are often plagued with the problem of trying to make the player the center of the world while also allowing them to make the decisions they want to make. In DA2 you aren't the center of the world. Not at the beginning anyway. And the whole driving force of the game is that your character wants to make a name for themselves. The greatest strength part: you are not given a list of goals to accomplish and instead you are basically let go to do as you please. The greatest weakness: it just doesn't feel epic enough. In terms of amount of gameplay it is certainly epic, just not in scope. You don't fight armies of darkspawn, or save a kingdom. You do quests. Lots and lots of quests, and many of them are indeed very interesting and some are tied together in interesting ways. You save mages from templars, you save templars from blood mages, you fight Qunari, you rescue nobles and their sons, you stop crime, you cause crime, you go into the fade and vanquish demons, and so on and so forth. I cannot stress how much I enjoy having a huge amount of quests in an RPG. It's fun, but doesn't feel meaningful.

Combat: The essentials from DA:O are there. You have a tank with a sword 'n board and they hold aggro, you have a rogue who stands behind people and stabs 'em, and you have a mage who heals and casts fireballs. The underlying mechanics are not as different as many people seem to believe. How these mechanics are presented/implemented in different ways. Movement, attack speed, and attack damage have all been buffed while the health of many enemies has been decreased. To balance this out, there are a lot more enemies. I'm playing the game on Hard, and it's somewhat uneven. Some fights are ridiculously easy, while others are very difficult. At least it makes sense that killing seasoned Qunari warriors will take a lot longer than killing a band of hapless street thugs. The combat animations are flashy, bloody, and filled with lots of thunder and fire. Many people call the combat dumbed down, and many people call it simplified. So I'm just going to say this; the combat is fun, but if you preferred the more tactical combat of DA:O then you won't enjoy this. This doesn't mean the game is bad. Somethings just aren't for everyone.

Graphics: Looks fine on my PC. If you're one of the people complaining about the graphics in an RPG, then you're trying to hard to hate this game.

Sound, Voice Acting, and Music: Good but not great. Varric easily gets my vote for the best voice-acted character.

Bottom line: If you are someone who wants this game to be Baldur's Gate 3, then it's not for you. Don't get me wrong. I'd love a Baldur's Gate 3 to come out. But this isn't it. And you just have to live with that. DA:2 has flaws just as DA:O did, they're just different flaws. The story doesn't work 100%, but it at least was a stab at something different. There's this strange notion that Bioware 'dumbed' down DA2 for the 'stupid masses', but honestly I think this idea is overblown. In fact, many of you who hate this game must think I'm a member of the masses who plays Halo and Call of Duty non-stop. And I'm not. I'm a HUGE fan of roleplaying games. Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Morrowind, Oblivion, KOTOR, ME+ME2, DA:O, and now DA:2. I like all of these games and love some of them. DA:2 is a fun game with hours and hours of questing filled with moral ambiguity in one of the best new fantasy worlds to come out in a long time. Even if the story that holds it all together is not as good as other Bioware games, I really don't care so long as I'm in the world of Thedas.… Expand

Let me begin by saying DO NOT trust the positive reviewers, as Bioware/EA employees have been busted posting positive reviews on metacritic, check the link for evidence: http://tinyurl.com/6h5xcx4 Aside from the disgusting ethics the above showcases, I am shocked at how lenient the professional reviews are of Dragon Age II's faults, of which there are many, and how much they praise the "improvements" which are questionable at best. They ignore or downplay the GLARING flaws in the game: e.g., meaningless dialogue choice (apart from quest centric dialogue, characters basically just carry on as if you didn't even say anything, your choices change almost nothing) ; useless **** dialogue wheel from Mass Effect which basically ruins any decent conversations anyway ; the story is overall lacking (mostly it consists of "Now go on, and become epic Hero for great justice!!1211!!") ; the characters are for the most part dull and/or unlikeable ; Dungeons are ALL recycled versions of one another, there are a few dungeons put together (generic cave dungeon, generic sewer dungeon, generic mansion dungeon, and generic deep roads dungeon, by name) which are simply reused and revisited without the slightest detail being changed, whether it be layout style or lighting, they are literally exactly the same, and you will revisit them again and again and again ; Enemies now spawn in waves, reducing the tactical micro-management combat that has been with Bioware from the get-go, to pointless button mashing, since you cannot ration mana or energy with any sort of strategy, and it recharges so quickly in combat that it just doesn't matter ; Also related to combat, Bioware decided to balance difficulty settings by just making all of them absolutely mindnumbingly easy, to the point that players will probably never need to utilise the lauded combat pause feature ; quests are similarly tedious, and are often disjointed, meaningless (no story whatsoever, you will sometimes find an item, psychically deduce who the owner is, and then have to take it back to them, they will say "thanks, bye" and that will be it, end of quest), dull, and/or have broken journal notifications ; this list could go on for AGES . Basically, everything anyone ever liked about Dragon Age: Origins has been ruined, and nothing meaningful has been added. The graphics are still sub-par, so no luck there. The inclusion of a voiced character (another so called "improvement") has reduced any NPC interaction to a meaningless facade, as above. There is not one thing in this game that I could say had been unquestionably improved, NOT ONE THING, and a host of backwards steps. This game is a waste of your time, money, and is backed by some morally disgusting people. Avoid at all costs.… Expand

The game is nothing. But I was infuriated with the problems of conservation and the same type of location. I was expecting more.ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd

Dragon Age:Origins had everything going for it and instead of taking everything that the fans loved and expanding on it, the development team completely ignored them and took the game in a completely different direction.
Immersion/Atmosphere: This is the biggest problem because those are gone from the game. The quests are uninspiring "run between arrows on the map until the quest is completed" type. You can't speak to your companions unless you are in a specific place, which takes away from the immersion. For the large portion of the game you feel like a glorified errand boy. The dialogue wheel is a disaster, since the choices range from "Nice, Cunning, and Jackass", and are conveniently marked by the appropriate icons, so you don't even have to read the text. This doesn't feel like the same caliber of RPG that DA:O was.
Surroundings: Bland and uninteresting. Unless small brown dull dungeons are your thing.
Characters: Most characters are pretty one dimensional and are not well written. The only decent one is Varric. Inventory/Abilities: The star rating for items is very annoying. Why not just equip it FOR ME already, if you obviously know what's better for my character? The abilities don't have any thought put into them, with names like "Weapon and Shield". Why not name a talent tree "More HP" or "Stabby Stabby"?
Interface/Icons/Graphics: Interface is an annoying fest of red and black screens. If you want to laugh, try to go through talent trees and click on icons for abilities and guess what they are. It's basically impossible because they are so poorly drawn. On the plus side, the sex scenes look like two mailboxes banging each other :D… Expand

This game doesn't actually deserve a 0. It is fairly solid and probably warrants a 7-8. The score of 0 goes to the developers. I don't understand how it was possible to make the game this much worse that DA:O. GIVE ME MY CUSTOMIZATION BACK!

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This review is coming from someone who absolutely loved Dragon Age: Origins and came into Dragon Age 2 with high expectations. I fully expect that if I didn't like Origins so much I'd give this game about a 5 or 6.

I just completed this game as a sword and shield tanking warrior. Dragon Age 2 has many good qualities but just as many faults. The combat in this game reminds me of old arcade games with enemies constantly spawning in from the sides while you beat them up. Most of the fights in this game involve enemies swinging down from the rooftops like monkeys. I spent most of my battles trying to pick up aggro on stray enemies spawning in behind my mages. I enjoyed the new combat animations, but not much else. The dual wielding dagger Templars doing back flips in full plate was pretty entertaining.

Another problem with the combat is the lack of npc character specializations. You can't, for instance, make Isabela an archer or make Fenris a tank. Your only choice for a healer for most of the game is Anders. With my warrior I felt like I was forced to take Anders with me even though I didn't really like him. It feels a lot like having to take Wynne with you in Origins if you weren't a mage. At least there you had the option of making Morigan into a healer. Also, as I'm sure many previous reviews have stated, you can't change your companion's armor. The graphics do look pretty good. However, there are so few environments that the visuals eventually lose their appeal. You literally see everything you are going to see in the first act of the game as far as environments go. I wish that Dragon Age 2 had at least one more substantial area to visit. There were a few graphical glitches I encountered such as the shield on my warrior's back appearing and disappearing during dialogues.

The plot starts off strong, gets weaker in the middle, and ramps up near the very end. This game really hammers you with the whole Templars vs Mages concept and doesn't stop. I was getting tired of being reminded around every corner that the two groups just don't like each other. I guess they are just trying to explain that to new players who haven't played Origins, but even then it seems excessive. Along this line, it appears that every mage in the city of Kirkwall can just whip out a knife and perform blood magic. I was shocked by the amount of blood mages in this game. It really got old fast.

I really liked the Qunari in this game, and looked forward to all the segments involving them. They were voiced well, and by the end of the game I thought they would have made a much better antagonist than the actual antagonist.

I enjoyed the voice work and the music of the game for the most part. Some of the pronunciation of certain locations in the game have changed from Origins (I cringe whenever an elf says Arlathan), but that is my only complaint. The characters are believable and are quite interesting. Their voices are pretty quiet though, requiring me to crank up the speaker volume and lower the soundeffect/music volume to hear them well.

The side quests in this game are quite mundane. You usually either go somewhere and kill some guys or you bring some item you found back to somebody in the town. There are so many side characters involved in these quests that you quickly forget who they are when they show up later. I'd have characters appear and say something like, "You killed my brother!!!" and I'd just be standing there thinking, "I did?" It helps that several of these encounters have a dialogue option along the lines of, "Who are you again?"

The game froze on me about 8 times, with about two cases of quests not working correctly. I had just completed a character quest with Anders, and the quest text told me to speak with him in his clinic. When I went to his clinic and clicked on him, all he did was speak one line of dialogue. The quest remained in my log until the end of the game. I found out later that some other quests I thought I had completed didn't show their ending scenes.

It took me about 30 hours to complete the game, doing all of the side quests I could find and beating optional boss encounters. It was pretty fun in the beginning, but I gradually just wanted to hurry up and complete it near the end. For every one thing that Dragon Age 2 does right, it does one thing wrong. I can't recommend paying full price for this game, but you should pick it up after the price has come down a bit or steam has a sale. Well, only if you enjoy the setting of Origins. I can't really imagine someone getting much out of this title without having played the first game.… Expand

I hate to be so tough on a game that was at least slightly enjoyable, but given the fact that we all know Bioware is capable of creating outstanding games, I have to give this game a pretty low score.

Part One - Laziness

Graphics were mediocre at best, by 2011 standards. Felt like I was back in 2006 playing TES. But more than that, every dungeon map was identical...no actually, really. At first I thought it was just me, but no, Bioware really was that lazy. Second was the inventory system with items that had the exact same name and appearance but different stats. I mean, wtf? Is it really that hard to make one more name up? This game was not polished at all, total rush job. This was confirmed by the guy who recorded the score for the game (though it was more EA's fault for rushing to capitalize on the popularity of Origins)

Part 2 - Bugs

Maybe the consoles are a little less buggy, but it's hard to find someone that didn't have problems with this game. From date-check activation failure to random crashes to broken quests that occur out of order or not at all, the bugs in this game should have been fixed. If I'm EA and I'm putting my name on that game, I would not let such a bug-riddled excuse for a final product reach store shelves.

There are so many other things about this game that are infuriating, like the clunky combat system ( and the bugs inherent to it). But those i can live with.

The characters were OK. Not great, but less stereotypical than in Origins. There was more moral "grey area" and the future impact of your actions couldn't always be guessed.

So overall, I'm pretty disappointed in Bioware for being coerced into taking a series that had such high hopes attached to it, and putting it through the meat grinder, creating this sad excuse for a game.… Expand

Sorry for my language (the translator of Google)
I do not know what to say about this game.
This is a step backwards in the role-playing games
This console ****
This game is worth only 4 points out of 10

This is game can not be termed as sequel to Dragon Age :Origins. Period. Normally I never write on public forums but the way DA series is being treated after such a great game like DA:O saddens me. Origins had it owns short comings but hey BIOWARE should have improved on them rather stripping Origins completely and making DA2 a hack & slash game with few rpg elements.
Why I am disappointed, - Re-used maps, I mean same place over and over again ? what happened to exploration ? -Communication System - hello this is rpg right ? so why is the interaction with npc so restricted ? how do I build relationships with them or actually feel anything, right now I dont feel or give a damn if any of the the companions live or die
-Weapons,Crafting,Loot - You can not equip companions the way you want, damn restricted, the loot you get after killing seems meaningless ... Crafting .... well there isnt any !
- Voice Over : Some may like it , some may not but this Hawke is not me or atleast certainly not my warden. I dont feel connected with this guy
-Companions - well, the characters arent deep either, I mean really they are shallow, I feel like I am playing an action or adventure game not an RPG

Combat System : Well I must say it is more fluid and I liked it but they took it TOO FAR, this is not suppose to feel like HACK & SLASH game. They have almost killed the tactical aspects of the battles, which I hate it. It is not a shooter with swords... come on ! The combat is a mixed bag, you like some you dont like some things. I will take it with a pinch of salt

Verdict --- If you loved DA:O for what it was with its shortcomings - then you will hate DA2… Expand

This game is disgrace. And there is so many bad thing that I can not name them all. It is easier to say, if Bioware are planning to make DA3 than safest way is to copy everything from DA origins, and I mean skills, crafting, spells, companions armor, rogues abilities to use swords, different caves etc. Better is that they do not change anything, or they could just give Obsidian to make nice game.

Dragon Age: Origins its a great game. Dragon Age 2 just **** sorry but its true. Don't buy this game Don't buy this game Don't buy this game Don't buy this game Don't buy this game Don't buy this game Don't buy this game Don't buy this game Don't buy this game Don't buy this game Don't buy this game Don't buy this game

I finished the game today. Beyond not being the same type of game as DAO, and thus a sort of surprise, the major problem with the game is the recycling of levels and the complete lack of variety in the quests. The quests are all the same. Even for an action rpg the game itself is quite boring, there is one boss battle that requires something different than the usual strategies that you can apply to every fight. The story is very nice, and I personally do not care if it is more linear given that it is good. The problem is that the game transmit the feeling of having no soul. If you want it is something like the first assassin creed, gorgeous, nice story, but after you have completed a third of it you are bored to death.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. (1.0)

Gameplay; 1.0/10.0

The combat in DA2 is a huge step back from Dragon Age Origins. The underlying system is the same, but by upping the pace and letting the player control normal attacks directly, combat feels incredibly dumbed down, which becomes rather boring, rather quickly. Successful attacks are met with a slashing sound. The fighting styles between the three classes (warrior, mage, rogue) feel as almost the same, as do different specializations within a class. Difficulty levels are incredibly unstatic, enough to accomodate neither gamers looking for hack `n` slash action, nor for gamers who want full control over their party, and utilizing the pause menu to issue tactical commands for setting up combos.

STORY: 1/10

The tale within a tale narrative structure is kinda interesting at first, but any curiosity you might have quickly dies down, however, as poor storytelling makes you lose any connection to Hawke you may have had at the beginning. There are two issues with the plot devices used in DA2. The first is the timeskip. Between each act of the game, there is a gap in which you do not participate. This makes you feel less engaged at the start of the next act, because whatever new predicament Hawke finds himself in, you were not there to experience it. Moreover, Hawke occasionally meets people that he supposedly met during a timeskip, but you as a player have never met. This really wrenches you out of Hawke's shoes, as you realize that despite controlling Hawke's actions and choices for certain parts of his life, you are ultimately just a spectator.

The second plot device that I have trouble with is something that is common in RPGs. Basically, you have a main objective, but have to do a bunch of other stuff before you can achieve that objective. DA2's side quests are incredibly boring (more on this later), thus making this common RPG plot device much more obvious. After literally spending hours doing side quest after side quest that have no relation to the main plot whatsoever, it's easy to get sidetracked and forget what Hawke's main goal was in the first place.

Finally, conversations in DA2 are a step down from the ones in DAO. The fully written dialogue choices from DAO are done away with. Instead, DA2 uses a dialogue wheel similar to Mass Effect. What this means is that Hawke talks exclusively in one-liners, and that conversations are all short and to the point, presumably so they wouldn`t get in the way of the mind-numbingly boring action. Moreover, all conversation choices are marked with an emotion icon (heart, halo, you get the idea). While potentially useful, what these icons really do is making sure gamers don`t have to think about how to phrase a response. Instead, conversation quickly boils down to choosing the stance you want to take, like in the much better, but also quite rushed, Alpha Protocol. Conversations with random NPCs are gone too. Now, every conversation is with a quest-giver. This makes Kirkwall a horribly lifeless place, as everyone you talk to just wants you to help solve their problems. It also means that no one talks to you about Dragon Age lore in the game. Instead, all lore is obtained through the Codex, and not conversations. This means that people who hate reading on a screen like me aren't able to learn much about the lore of the DA universe. Then again, it wasn`t interesting in the first place, but still.

Conclusion;

Dragon Age II is an incredibly messy game, which smothered any potential it had with bugs, missed opportunities, and general laziness. Kirkwall is a lifeless place, á la the settlements in Borderlands, while dungeons are reused and reused and reused untill you can literally traverse them with your eyes closed. This, of course fits with the dumbing down of the other elements of DA2. The developers spoke of trying to capture the audience of the Call of Duty series, which is, in my eyes, a grave mistake; firstly because this`ll leave RPG-fans and more serious gamers in the cold, and secondly because COD-fans rather occupy themselves with things like Bulletstorm and sports games, outside of COD.

DA2 could have redeemed itself with other features, like the score, but fails with that too.

My final verdict;

GAMEPLAY; 1.0/10.0
STORY; 2.0/10.0
SCORE; 4.0/10.0
REPLAY VALUE; 1.0/10.0
GENERAL FEEL; 1.0/10.0

This adds up to around a 1.5, but seeing as things like gameplay are much more important than the score, I have to give this game a 1.0. Bioware dropped the ball big time with this game, and I look forward to Mass Effect 3 with fear, anticipating a failure of a game, much like Dragon Age 2… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The worst sequel i ever played. Perhaps developers planned this game for dumb heads? 3 variants of answers in dialogs, poor armor and weapons arsenal, stupid, oh sorry, idiotic combat system, absolutely predictable story and a lot of other "great" innovations...
Am i sleep or this guys really developed the greatest rpg games in past?
Also, about magazines score - Are U F Kidding? 9/10 - for what? O_o
2.0/10.0 - enough for this "masterpiece"… Expand

A complete failure. Graphics look like a PS2 game. Gameplay is like God of War except not real time and boring as hell. I'd rather take an enema from a disgruntled lumberjack than play 5 minutes of this trash. If for some reason you decide to buy this game and feel the need to complain, you better not post anything negative on the BIOWARE FORUM or they will not only ban you from the forum, they'll block access to all of your EA games.… Expand

If you liked and are expecting the same quality of game as Mass Effect or Dragon Age Origins this game is not for you. I wanted to like this game, but after 10 hours of game play I've had to put it down and doubt I'll be finishing it. I wish I could get my money back - my opinion of BioWare has been absolutely shattered by this. There's a few things that I found absolutely unexceptable:
1) Reuse of the same locations (one cave, one warehouse, one coastline) the entire game. All the maps feel like hallways with no sense of open exploration you expect in RPGs.
2) Item drops are just uninteresting and uninspired. Most things are just named belt, or ring, the graphics for items don't really change, and you can't really use much of what drops anyways. They actually have a "junk" category... why are you making me pick up junk in the first place?
3) Dialogue/relationships between characters is pretty shallow/contrived/immature.
4) Ending is abrupt - ends in 7 years... where's my decade they advertised?
5) Combat is horribly dull and uninspired. There's no strategy, you just fight wave after wave of enemies that spawn out of nowhere. 6) Many of the quests are just tedious and boring. This just feels like a very stale and poorly executed RPG with none of the innovation, twists, and intelligence I'd expect from a AAA title.

I'm not sure where the "professional" reviews are coming from but I feel like they can't have played the game for very long because it's just so obviously a subpar game.

Bleeeeeh… Expand

A serious disappointment. They removed everything RPG about this game. Actually I didn't mind the combat system, but the immersion was just gone completely. It felt like walking through a painting, I was not in a real game world. The complete lack of items and lack of variety among the few that there were was also annoying... so was the inability to equip your companions... so were the new dumbed-down character trees... so were the recycled dungeons... I could go on...

And the story was just stupid. Anders blows up the Chantry WHY? "HURF DURFF IT MUST END HERE!!!!" Not to mention the whole thing being rather predictable. The fact that so many DA2 fans cite the "complex and challenging story" as a factor in this game shows how f*cking stupid you have to be to like this. WHOAH **** THE OLD LADY WENT MAD HUH? AND IT WAS COS OF THAT IDOL? NOOO surely not!! Magic driving people insane? WHOAH better slow down there Bioware, you're breaking new ground here!!! Neither did the story hang together. There were lots of plotlines and events that seemed to be relevant but just happened and remained unexplored. More annoyingly, they ruined the character of Anders. Instead of being a bumbling moron making crap jokes, which meant you could laugh at him if not with him, he became a whiny wuss who kept hitting on you (I'm gay irl but seriously, get lost fgt).

This game is 60% an unfinished rush-job and 40% an attempt to commercialise RPGs. Evidently someone at EA failed to notice that cRPGs are ALREADY highly commercial. Hopefully this will flop and they'll learn their lesson.… Expand

I play Rpg games on pc by 15 years. I have them all starting by Ultima 8 avatar...
This game is a pure disaster on each side you try to judge it.
Dialogues are bad, Combact is bad, Graphic is bad (I play at max resolution 2500*1600), History is bad, party is bad, Inventory is bad, statistics and talents are bad. Environment is bad. Difficulty is ridicolous (i am playing at most difficult level and believe me it is too easy...) Camera and pause are soo bad that even seems they not exists... It is quite impossible to make tattics with a so bad camera angle.
Really a disaster... Even Hack and slash games are better than this... Where is the Bioware of the past that releases true rpg games like Baldur's gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment ???
I buy the signature edition and i wont my money back...… Expand

Dragon Age 2 is a poor game and extremely disappointing. While some changes from DA:O were made to "improve" the game, the result is appalling and a joke. Some principles of what makes a good "RPG" are universal and can be assessed objectively, such as a unified overarching story that makes sense, varied combat and environments, and the ability to immerse yourself in the game. Unfortunately this is not possible in Dragon Age 2 for a number of reasons:

1. After completing the game, I struggled to recall what the main purpose of my journey was, or what I achieved. Honestly, what the hell was the point of Act 1??? I don't want to give away spoilers, but it was very difficult to enjoy a story that was put together in far too short a space of time and where there was no direction in character or plot development.

2. The re-use of the same environments was an insult to any gamer who spent their hard earned cash on this product. It is not asking too much to play a 30+ hour campaign without seeing the same environments ad nauseum. I believe I literally saw a total of 10 environments a dozen times each. If the designers couldn't get some more environments designed within the release date, then they need to push the release date back. Gamers expect more for their money, and rightly so. We are not stupid 12 year olds who cannot see the cust-cutting short cuts that have been taken.

3. Re-spawning enemies in battles. I mean honestly, is there anything else that could make it more difficult to immerse yourself in Kirkwall? You find a set of enemies, proceed to kill them, then randomly 20 more sprout from the skies. Is there an explanation? NO! It just happens and you deal with them. Sorry, but this is just extremely lazy programming and game design. You wanted to make the game challenging so you just add more baddies. Well, from a game design point of view this may have been the easiest option, but how many modern classic videogames employ such a draconian approach to game design? None. This was disgusting and a discgrace and I expected better for a supposedly AAA title.

4. The loss of real decision-making. It would be hard to describe this section in detail without spoilers, but it should be noted that although the game presents itself as giving you a "choice" in your story, the sad fact is that no matter what options you take in the story, there is little to no bearing on the final outcome.

5. The game feels "incomplete". While DA:O had it's own well contained story, and a lot of DLC and even a full expansion, the original product itself felt complete. The story made sense, had a beginning, middle and conclusion (as all stories with STRUCTURE have). This game does not have structure, and feels like a petty cash grab to throw in some more overpriced DLC. Honestly, I don't mind DLC, but the core product should be complete enough that it doesn't feel like I have to buy DLC to enjoy my experience. Give me a complete product and story for my money, not this farce. (I believe this may just be an approach that EA adopts, as I swear to god that the Sims 3 was also one of the world's most incomplete games)

6. The city of Kirkwall is a joke. Do you honestly think I didn't see how you made all the high buildings so that you didn't have to create a greater draw distance, or add textures or design to objects in the distance? Sorry, but there shouldn't be so many "high rise" buildings in a game set in an era that is similar to medieval europe. Where are all the other towns and cities? The forests? Nothing, just one bland city with too many buildings blocking any views.

7. Gameplay. So you said that the game can still be played tactically but you took out the tactical view and made enemies need a single button to be killed? Lazy, boring and stupid This was blatantly lazy from a design point of view, I'm sure you saved some money in your design on the game, but you have lost money on future purchases with this rubbish.

Granted there are some redeeming features such as improved graphics (in comparison to DA:O) and the new dialogue system show promise, however this is never fully realised as Hawk is rather bland and generic and hardly customisable, leaving little to the imagination. Therefore a 4/10 is a fair assessment. I would like 36 hours of my life back and 100 AUD.

EA/Bioware may have made a conscious business decision to expand their audience, but this business decision has backfired on them as they have lost a customer (and likely many more), and let me tell you, the COD ADD audience that this game is targeted at are largely uninterested in a fantasy RPG that takes way too long to complete considering there is so little content.

By the way, I understand this is my first and only review, but I feel so strongly about this game that I felt the opinion should be expressed. I am not a troll, just a very angry customer who has been ripped off.… Expand

There could be a long list of things I could mention that are just wrong with this game. Lets just say if you like Dynasty Wars, console button mashing, over the top animations, lazy implementations of game themes and finally, you like your RPGs, well, not as RPGs but as arcade style games, then you will love this. If you like traditional RPGs, save your money as this is pure powder puff. Very disappointing. If you play it, remember to keep inserting $1 to continue...… Expand

Biggest disappointment since Spore. This is what happens when you take a complex genre and try to dumb it down so that everybody can enjoy it -- the result is a mess that bores the longtime DnD fans while still being too inaccessible for today's wave of newcomers. Take Dynasty Warriors, but remove the cool and interesting characters, varied settings, and adrenaline-pumping music, and this is what you are left with.

I highly recommend researching Bioware's handling of criticism before deciding to purchase this game.

Hopefully Bioware will learn from their mistakes, and their next game will have a more decided focus -- either a silly waggle adventure game for the Wii that mom and dad can play, or a REAL sequel to Baldur's Gate II. Trying to smush the two together is a recipe for failure.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Compared to DA1, the sequel is trash in my honest opinion. The game lacks depth in storytelling, lore and quests. Storytelling was even lower quality than DA1. What I mean is that if I am playing a "movie RPG" like DA2, I expect to see some scripted custom animations, high quality dialogue or even nice prerendered cut scenes but when I completed the game I felt empty handed. I was also expecting to see some advancement in the Dragon Age core lore but after the brief introduction of Flemeth and her reappearance mid-game, the game just kept centering on the Champion of Kirkwall. Lore-wise speaking the game should have been an expansion or DLC to original DA, very much like DA:O. The quests themselves are mindless, which might be enough for some people but I feel that there should be something new to these "go to the point X, kill Y and bring me the Z". Recycling maps is usually acceptable in this kind of games but if we are just running around one city lik in DA2, I get the expression the game was pushed out too early. Every mansion looks the same, every house has the same rooms and even all the close by caves, five or six of them, look completely the same. I felt like playing one of those low grade Asian role-playing game made for kids which would not see the similarity of the maps.

Combat and skill system is surely better than in DA1. Fighting in general feels more smooth and even thought number of abilities/spells was reduced, I think the general feel of the abilities/spells is better. The "combo states" (staggering etc.) game the fighting a little more depth too but overall these positive features can't save the game.

All-in-all, I feel like I've brought an overpriced and hurried expansion pack to Dragon Age. Makes me a sad panda.… Expand

Totally disappointed for a game shamefully dumbed down, poor in content, and with very low production quality. Probably sold for the only reason to make quick money on the name of the previous game.
This is the last Bioware game I spend my money on.

Expect an oversimplified hack and slash with quite dull and linear storyline and pseudo choices that does not matter for a thing for you character or storyline. Camera works terribly in this game and the overuse of generic dungeons is an absurd....This is kind of "Prince of Persia" or "Tomb Raider" game more than it is a Dragon Age" Origins successor, not mentioning Baldur"s Gate. I am very disappointed with this title, although if you like arcade games you may like actually it.… Expand

I haven't played this, nor will I ever play this.
Due to metacritic poisoning by EA/Bioware employees this title fails it's chance to be reviewed there by retaining the base score of 1.
Further the employee of EA/Bioware was from Alberta & it shames me to have such unethical persons in our country so much so that all EA's recent decent to good customer service with me has been set back by a marked amount.… Expand

YOU TOOK DRAGON AGE AND MAKE IT SUCK SO MUCH IT MAKES FFXIII LOOK GOOD. That's scary. AVOID.

Graphics: DX11 looks worse than most DX9 games I've seen. Flashy, crappy textures, silly rendering artifacts, clipping issues, etc. New "stylized" design is kinda bs and lame.

Story: There is no story, really. It has a few nice moments, but there is no PLOT. Just a long list of **** happens." Oh, also, it doesn't respect your DAO decisions. Imports dont mean much. And, the ending is just the worst sequel hook ever. And that's saying something after Witch Hunt DLC.

Characters: Your party members can actually... like... do quest-related stuff when you take them along. This is pretty cool. They're also really one-dimensional. And slightly retarded. Anders... makes some questionable choices, Merrill makes the most idiotic childlike observations despite her age, Isabella is just... vacuous - and she makes questionable choices, Fenris is a damn "manly emo" ripped straight from some kind of extra-bad FF game, Aveline is a well-meaning hardass, etc. Oh, Merrill and Anders are returning characters in name only since they're so changed they're completely different characters now.

Sex: Enough of it to deserve it its own section. Brothel isn't even funny this time. Ninja-romances are horrible. You have a Male Hawke who acts nice to Anders (WITHOUT flirting) and after his questline Anders just... seriously comes on to you (WTF?) and for your responses you have 3 options where 2 of them are heart-shaped romance options, so I pick the third, angry one, which apparently means gay ragesex time. OKAY, NO THANKS.

Interface: No tactical camera is pain. You can't give orders well. Add to that classic "helpful" AoE targetting to automatically select enemies and... yeaugh. There is a horrible bug going on where pretty often I cant make any orders because the interface is bugging out and thinks I'm assigning a different order (click fireball on mage, go to warrior, be unable to do anything as game expects you to keep assigning mage order with warrior, try to assign/cancel mage order, be unable since you selected warrior, switch to mage, assign/cancel order, switch to warrior; I somehow get it to happen a LOT). Inventory star rating system to tell you what to wear is just insulting.

Character attribute and ability system: The new system for leveling skills is cool, but the way it's used is just dumb (they really like asking you to get two abilities which absolutely do not work together - like, activating one requires disabling the other - to get access to other abilities). There might be some good potential for trying out different builds if only it felt like builds really mattered (they don't, really). For attributes: You also have a choice of 6 attributes, but you will really just be using 2 at most (these 2 are determined by your class). The other 4 are just bait for you to shoot yourself in the foot.

Balance: Yeah, tons of OP stuff in there. You wont feel like you're playing this game before long. You'll just be bored while watching enemies die. I think the game is intentionally made stupidly easy because the game is so rushed (It was developed in ONE year.) it was the only way to make it playable.

Level design: Insulting. Everything is narrow, too straightforward, and to top it off levels are re-used WAAAY TOOO MUUUCH. Also, cutscenes keep repositioning your team into bad locations. And the game really likes to spawn waves and waves of enemies right out of nowhere to keep you busy fighting. Classic console BS. And all the encounters feel the same. Bioware seems to have gone for quantity, not quality here. Also, Kirkwall (This is the city where the entire game takes place.) doesn't feel like the bustling mega-city it's meant to be.

Questing: A lot of pointless padding quests in there. It even has fetch quests where you hardly talk to anyone.

Game length: I'd say around 35-40 hours tops - that's if you decide to do every sidequest except the completely mundane fetch quests. 20 hours tops if you don't waste time with that.

Dialogue: It makes Mass Effect's wheel system look good. All regular dialogue will have Investigate menu (ie. ask questions) plus 3 options: Nice, Silly, and **** Because picking too many options of one flavor "sets the flavor for your character" there will be a lot of automatic dialogue you wont get to pick. So now, you have even less of an idea what your character will really say. The "flavor" will just take over.

Music: I don't really remember it.

DRM: Disgusting. Unethical and amoral even. Go to www.reclaimyourgame.com and read about it. ...And you need internet to be able to play this game, even though it has NO multiplayer or anything (just DLC). PAIN. To top it off, people have gotten locked out of their Bioware accounts for forum offenses, which LOCKED THEM OUT OF THE GAME. Yeah.

I'm going to hope for The Witcher 2 now.… Expand

Bottom line, If I didn't play DAO, this game would be ...ok. But if it was not labeled DA2, I would never have bought it. I understand the move to cater to console, I don't agree with it, but I understand it. I feel like i just got kicked in the nads by my grandma after she promised me fresh baked cookies. How disappointing... and painful. I'm a casual gamer, but man, i was really looking forward to this one, I don't think Ive ever been so let down with a game release. Why would they alienate their loyal RPG supporters? It just seems foolish at best. I'm not outraged, just annoyed and confused to the core. I feel/felt nothing with this game and that is possibly the worst thing that can happen when playing a "RPG" title.

-Graphics were ok, but lack of effort takes away considerably. Cut and paste! Really? Mods were released for DAO with more original thought(and my hat tips to all of those who work on mods...for free, Dev team was paid, whats their excuse?). And speaking of which, no tool set info...c'mon guys. DAO tool-set was released far after the game, but to leave everyone so in the dark makes me think that there isn't even one being planned, and the elusive attitude about it is just a way get more sales. what happened with auto attack on consoles...."a mistake was made", right. And it only came to attention a day before release, which makes no sense, because the game was already sent off, and we would all have seen this "mistake". Clear, in your face, deception. The good,(i suppose)Lots of gore, fast paced, voice acting is acceptable, interesting characters.
The bad, Story in general, cut and paste used frequently, cant even dress companions, no tool-set, dumb dialogue choices, No tactics needed, Buggy, and most importantly the sheer amount of recycled material from other titles. Graphics models=DAO, but with a new format to screw over modders. Menu/dialogue=Ripped right out of ME series. What exactly took two years to develop in this game?

As a standalone game, its a 6. entertaining for about 90 minutes, then repetitive...literally.
As a sequel to the GOTY DAO, its a 0. doesn't even deserve to stand in the prequels shadow.… Expand

Inspired by the success of Mass Effect 2, Bioware decided to send the Dragon Age franchise down the same dirt brown road. Taking an interesting universe, populated by interesting characters, and replacing it with a bland hero story that tries to hard at every direction. The only button you should press to make something awesome happen with this game is the eject button. :D

This game is terrible. I don't think this can be even called an RPG at all. It looks just plain ugly, recycles the same exact locations. The gameplay is simply a joke. Doesn't Bioware have any shame selling this to people? Biggest disappointment this year so far.

Nothing I can really say except without a doubt the production company bought and paid for any decent critic reviews. There is no way a professional game critic could endorse this pile of crap. It's story is for a 5 year old, the gameplay is boring, and you can't even choose the equipment for your party (dead serious)

I was shocked by how bad this game was. I am not a hardcore gamer and don't follow all the industry news, but isn't this the same team that designed Dragon Age: Origins? How is that even possible? That was such a great game that I bought DA2 on Steam without even playing the demo. Shame on me. I'm a pretty simple gamer. I've bought buy every Civilization sequel and every Dragon Quest sequel since I first played those games in the 80's. I like a certain style of game, and I don't often take a chance and try a new game. I did for Origins and was quickly hooked. I bought all the DLC. The story and visuals were simply amazing, and the game was completely immersive. Dragon Age II is much too bland and boring to be immersive. I played five or six hours before deciding I was never going to get that feeling in this game. I know my rating is harsh, but that is my anger at the complete waste of money. They should not have used the Dragon Age name for this game.… Expand

There's really only one good thing about Dragon Age II and that is its ability to reveal how the 'critics' have become next to useless when it comes to assessing the worth of a game. Especially so when the inflation of a game's rating is part of the marketing strategy utilised by EA and various other publishers to get you to purchase overpriced tedium (i.e. DA2). Want to know how good a game really is? Read the reviews made by people whose opinions aren't subject to scrutiny by these publishers.

As for the game itself, virtually everything that needs to have been said has been said. Dragon Age II is truly a celebration of the most asinine elements of game design. It's built on the principle that far less detail is somehow much more exciting. After all, why should game developers construct elaborate backdrops and diversify the environments that the player will roam through when they can simply copy and paste the same areas over and over again? It's not as if anyone will notice that they're running through the same buildings and the same caves if those areas are changed ever so slightly on each return visit.

Keeping in line with the graphical splendour, the gameplay of Dragon Age II is also wildly mediocre. The combat feels unpolished and oversimplified. With the addition of a 'wave' mechanic to fights, it becomes near impossible to tactically assess any fight from its outset. Once you've fought off all the enemies on screen, more simply pop into existence to fight you. There's no indication of how many waves you'll get nor how many enemies you'll fight in each wave. This is especially tedious when it occurs in every encounter. No thought seems to have been given to enhancing combat at all other than to extend its duration and give you less to do during a fight. Last time I checked, prolonging a bad thing didn't turn it into something magical and Dragon Age II is no exception.

If you were hoping that the narrative was the redeeming factor, hope no longer. It's not. The story could simply function as a long winded introduction to the protagonist and nothing more. There's no true climax in this game and the note on which it all ends sums up the entire experience; overwhelming blandness.

Keep the money in your wallet, don't embarrass game developers and publishers who actually make the effort to allow you to enjoy games and don't buy this game.… Expand

I can certainly understand why there is so much hatred for this game after finally playing it through. Rarely have I experienced such an anger while playing a game. Dragon Age 2 is a shockingly pathetic combination of a weak story, retarded game mechanics, ugly graphics (compared with ALL current games) and extremely annoying companions and NPCs. It is unbelievable that they dare charging 60 bucks for this piece of trash. I would rather cut both my hands and legs than to ever buy another Bioware "product" again ("work of art" my ass!). To the extremely lucky who have not yet bought the game but are curious to try (curiosity here only brings more pain than good), I humbly advise you to torrent the hell out of it (Dragon Age 2's shoddy quality doesn't even justify your patient waiting for its price tag to drop to 10%!). Just torrent, try and then utterly forget it!… Expand

I give this game such a low score because I absolutely cannot review it in a vacuum, as a stand-alone game that has nothing to do with DA:O. Even if it was not in any way related to DA:O, I would still have to give it no more than a 5, because this is not an RPG. It's a flashy, anime-esque hack'n'slash game with a few RPG elements. And that is just not my cup of tea. But because this is called Dragon Age 2, I have to compare it to DA:O. It may not be a sequel, per se, but it is still supposed to be the same universe with the same lore, and that is where Bioware went staggeringly wrong. For starters, the artwork and rendering of various races, characters, and creatures have been drastically changed. Elves look like rip-offs of Avatar's Na'vi, Qunari have horns, darkspawn look like humans with stupid skull-mask faces that aren't the least bit scary or revolting, and Flemeth is an armor-clad Disney sorceress. Not only have they turned into cartoon caricatures of themselves, it is practically inconceivable that Bioware would actually expect us to believe that this is in fact the same world. To add insult to injury, Bioware took some serious liberties with the lore of DA:O (e.g. when people are infected with the taint, they no longer simply go insane and die an agonizingly slow and painful death, they actually turn into darkspawn). Call me a fanatic or a purist, but I feel as strongly about this as I would about someone taking liberties with LOTR lore. What makes for great fantasy or science fiction is its internal consistency, its adherence to the reality of its own world. Start taking liberties, start introducing contradictions, and we stop believing in the reality, which is the real magic. I could have dealt with a few cosmetic changes if they hadn't messed with the lore. But this game is disappointing for me in other ways as well. Everything feels "dumbed down." Combat is an over-the-top gore fest with little to no tactics (or thought) required. Enemies constantly explode into little meaty bits, limbs flying in all directions. Two-handed weapons are larger than the characters that wield them. Rogues execute Bruce Lee-style gravity-defying spins and kicks, leaping twenty feet to close with an enemy. The basic rules of physics are non-existent. The story-line is similarly non-existent. While I do like the new Friend/Rival companion system, where a companion will stick with the main character even if they disagree about everything, there is no compelling reason for the Rival companion to stick around. This would have made much more sense in DA:O. Stopping the Blight and killing the Archdemon is precisely the kind of world-at-stake pressing goal that would realistically override hurt feelings, petty squabbles, and political disagreements. In DA2, there is no such overarching world-at-stake goal, so the "I'll stick with you even though I hate your guts" mechanism just doesn't ring true. Everything else RPG fans love about the genre, from armor, weapon, and item systems to skill development, is also "dumbed down." A little "star-rating" system tells you at a glance whether the item you just picked up is "better" than the one you have equipped. Crafting has been vastly simplified, and the need to gather, scavenge, or buy crafting materials virtually eliminated. You can no longer equip companions in any armor, or (in some cases) with any weapon; they are limited to their specific "companion armor." Again, all this does is take the need for thought and tactical planning out of the game. As for the UI, it is obviously designed for consoles, which is extremely aggravating for PC gamers. We don't play consoles for a reason -- because we don't like them! -- and when we are forced to click around in a console UI on our PC, it is just infuriating. This game has left me very sad. Considering that Bioware has been *the* RPG leader of the industry for the past several years, I worry that the future of this beloved genre is bleak indeed.… Expand

I love DA:O very much, it's one of the most impressive games I've ever played,. I'm not at all impressed with DA2, however. In DA:O, I could log in, and immerse myself for 12 hours without realizing it - here, I have to fight to want to play an hour at a time. The graphics are pretty, but otherwise, this is a step backward from DA:O in almost every way. It feels like a fairly primitive console game thus far, and the inability to swap nearly any armor on your party members is beyond stupid. The questing is vapid (One never even knows what you're actually doing half the time, or why) with many quests being things like "Go talk to X group member at the tavern" when that group member is, in fact, in your travelling party and standing right next to you. The storyline, while potentially intriguing, is so broken up that it isn't particularly enjoyable. Everything feels like an excuse to go from one cut-scene to the next. In DA:O, it felt like you, the player, actually controlled the flow of the plot, and could make a difference in what would happen. In DA2, everything is preordained, and you're just along for the ride, being pushed from one step to the next, whether you will or no. Also, you felt an attachment to your character - you understood and helped shape the back-story that would be with your throughout the game. In DA2, you're some random nameless person, back-story already established, and everybody already knows everything about you... except you the player. They forget the part where they tell you about yourself.

The voicing of the main character is unnecessarily lengthy, and appallingly inaccurate - you almost never say anything resembling the option you selected, and conversations take twice as long as they used to, because you have to wait for (or ESC through) constant banter that you apparently have no control over anyway. The whole chat-wheel thing is a damnable console derivative that needs to die in a fire, and makes it unclear what number keys to use for keyboard chat control. To top it all off, there is no non-combat skill-tree! This isnâ… Expand

Hot trash , they took every good feeling and interesting aspect of origins and decided to dump it , companions are now a specific event only affair; no more talking to them as and when you please. gifts are quests now and totally retarded, random encounters? what random encounters? and as everyone has noticed , reused maps.. gets to the point you sometimes forget what the hell you are in the dungeon for.. was i killing dragons? spiders? rescuing idiots? whats the diff anyway it all looks the SAME. totally would not recommend, screw bioware and EA , never getting my money again… Expand