How extremely disappointing this game was, after waiting for it for so long, to get this mediocre piece of crap just pisses me off. I am in awe of the critic reviews. How can you re-use the same maps over and over, how can you only fight 10 character models the whole game, did the devs think that they could copy Baldur's Gate with the whole city hub thing? They failed miserably.
I wish one critic would have the balls to come out and say the truth about this mess of a game.… Expand

As an absolute lover and fanatic raver of Dragon Age: Origins, I was desperately looking forward to the series' second installment. Unfortunately, for every step forward this game took, it removed everything that made it's predecessor special to RPG players. The removal of the tactical camera, seemingly endless and predictable waves of repetitive enemies, and an AI that makes your allies slip into loops of stupidity make combat frustrating, though it is not as difficult as in Origins. Non-customizable or usable loot/armor for allies makes treasure hunting, one of the keystones of the RPG genre, feel largely unimportant. The WORST part is the constantly recycled dungeons. Each setting only has one map, with different doors closed off or opened up. These, among other travesties, are what makes this game a nightmare to play. It is not a follow up to Dragon Age: Origins in any sense of the word, and has gone from being an RPG to make you think and formulate tactical strategy to being one of mindless hack-and-slash. Do yourself a favor: save your money and pray that Dragon Age III, if it is ever made after this hack-job, goes back to its roots.… Expand

This game is the biggest disappointment of 2011. I don't understand how it is possible that DA2 has so many positive reviews in the press. Horrible boring game, uninspiring graphics, nightmarish dialogue and stupid, mindless fights...

Before starting Dragon Age 2, I went back to a Lothering saved game from Dragon Age: Origins to study the look of the NPC's; I wanted my Hawke character to resemble one of the NPC's from the original game... perhaps that seems strange, but I thought it would be fun from a role-playing perspective. I realized at that time that the DA:O NPC's had just a few basic models/molds that were then copied to populate the city. I was somewhat shocked, because I hadn't really noticed that during my first two DA:O playthroughs. I mention this because DA:O definitely "cut corners": linear pathways/not very open, clone NPC's populating cities, multiple dialog choices that lead to the same outcome, etc. The beauty of DA:O, however, was that the Bioware mages (developers) created Disney-like illusion: an epic storyline, characters you could have in-depth conversations with (at the time of your choosing), the ability to modify your companionsâ… Expand

I was a huge fan of Dragon Age Origins, so naturally I was really looking forward to this game. Unfortunately, like so many before me I was left disappointed. My biggest complaint would have to be the recycled environments. I can forgive Bioware for using the same city and surrounding areas due to the fact that the whole story takes place in Kirkwall, but when I'm forced to fight through the same few dungeons (it's still the same dungeon no matter how many paths you block or open up) and explore the same homes over and over again I just can't help but wonder if they really thought their fanbase would be okay with this. I'm also not very fond of the multiple waves of enemies. I don't mind big battles, but it just seems a bit stupid when the second waves always just sort of materialize out of nowhere. I could go on and on about my problems with this game (voiced protagonist, dumbed down rpg mechanics, weaker writing, etc.) but I'll end this on a happier note. Despite everything mentioned above, this still feels like a Dragon Age game. The story (although a little weak) kept me interested enough to finish the game and a few of the characters actually grew on me. Overall this is a disappointing game, however there are still enough positive aspects about it for it to not be a complete waste of money. Just a minor one.… Expand

Biggest disappointment of years... Dialogs for idiots and fight is a freaking hack n slash... Dragon Age 1 was best RPG since the great trio (Torment, Baldur, Fallout) and this is just a n unfunny joke...

Not as bad as other people would have you think (battle system was good, some allies were endearing), but definitely not as good as the previous entry. The plot felt a bit rushed, the characters'dialogues were less polished and it didn't leave a lasting impression on me.

People are right putting the lowerest score, it can be only be zero to destroy instead to improve. People is angry.
Copy and paste the same locations. Inconsistent lore like players allowed to be mages without any reason (grey warden? no). Brilliant dialogues but too few. This is an expansion camouflaged by tons of side quests and almost experienced romances.

What did you do bioware?! What in gods name did you do?!?! The first game was one of the most Epic, and Amazing games I have played by this company. The cutscenes, The music, the lore, The stylization of the characters, Specifically Morrigan. Her actor was terrific. (this is a biased statement about Morrigan) but her aside, I felt for the characters, and felt for the story! Even though the enemies were a little repetitive without much variance as well as seeing the same clothing on characters multiple times in the same cutscenes, the game still got the point across. But the second game?! The music was terrible. In the first game right away you hear this blood pumping epic theme with a woman chanting strange words beautifully...what was wrong that you decided to take such a thing out of the second game?! The voice acting was horrible, It didn't make me laugh or entertain me in the slightest. And most importantly, didn't make me feel for the characters. The gameplay was completely changed, simplified, and made boring! and don't get me started about the poor choice of party members as well. All in all I felt nothing for these people...the Hero of Ferelden was only mentioned in passing. It's like what you did barely mattered especially since the whole damn game was a story being told by a Dwarf while the story was being played....I admit they had balls trying something different but it ruined the suspense for me. I couldn't even make it through the whole entire game cause of how sorry it all was...shame on you Bioware, shame on you. I will not be playing Dragon Age 3...you had something beautiful, and you ruined it! You better not have ruined Mass effect 3 like this! Or mark my words I will never purchase another Bioware game as long as I live!… Expand

Disaster of a game. Hack and slash gameplay with a story that would make straight to DVD movies look like Oscar winners. Horrible clipping, textures, and unnecessary "jelly" blood. Most important is how those involved with the game refuse to acknowledge any criticism. Avoid at all costs.

This game is not up to standard with today's AAA games. the environments are boring and lifeless, I've spent more time looking at the mini map than my surroundings simply because there is int much to look at. The dungeons are a copy and paste of one and a other. I wont complain about the fighting, it's fast ,exciting and you need to use strategies in most fights.
The best part of dragon age 2 is the conversation system. The graphics are a lot better, the voice acting is excellent and the dialog choices are fun however, the story line is not that engaging. Dragon age 2 feels cheep and unfinished, I do not recommend.… Expand

Waste of time and money. Horrible graphics, boring storyline, boring and repetitive quests, recycled location, horrible ending, horrible game. Avoid at all cost.

A BioWare employee was caught posing as a consumer on the review site Metacritic. The employee, Chris Hoban, who posted under the name of Avanost gave a score of 10/10 saying "Anything negative you'll see about this game is an overreaction of personal preference." A representative for EA responded after much online controversy saying "Of course the people who make the game vote for their own game. That's how it works in the Oscars, that's how it works in the Grammys and why I'm betting that Barack Obama voted for himself in the last election", though it is unclear if Hoban acted on his own behest or on that of the company.… Expand

Awful...I thought the user reviews might be a bit off, so I took a chance. After loving the first game so much I can now see why everyone says this is just horribly bad. I will not go into all the problems with the game as they have been explained over and over...but I'll just say that Bioware has completely done themselves a disservice by completely removing the challenge and strategic combat of the first game. Just plain awful from story to combat...how disappointing indeed.… Expand

0-0 When i first tried DA: origins i thought that oblivion were the only "king of rpg's". I had to eat that back, because i suddently fell in love with that game, everything were at his place: the quests, the kind of battles, the plot, the dialogue... It was really awesome! while playing a little bit i realise that DA2 is gonna be released, i think to myself "its a little early, since its just 1 year of development from the first" but i didnt care much. Some months later i see DA2 in the store, so i gain some money to get it, I install it I try it oh dear. whats goin on with the battle? it looks like a button mashing contest everytime i have to challenge somebody, the graphics are if not equal even worse to the first one, even if its DX11 and the quests were all the goddamn same, collection quests all over the place! GET THIS GET THAT KILL THIS KILL THAT. gimme a break! In synthesis: 50 euros regretted… Expand

Great game and really enjoying it. The combat is much improved from the last game, despite others insistence, the tactics system is still alive and well, especially in nightmare mode. The ability to center around a living person in the city of Kirkwall and follow them through years in the game is an awesome step and one that my friends and I really have enjoyed so far. Do yourself a favor, get the game, play through it just once. You don't be disappointed and then you can take it back if you want.… Expand

One of the most anticipated games for a reason! Was able to play as the Mage in the Demo and the Rogue for the past 20 hours! As an RPG fan, this game really sucks you in with its in depth story by making you feel like you are really part this world that BioWare created for you. I look forward to spending many more hours on this.

Bioware didn't try and improve the aspects of Dragon Age that made it a great game. They tried to make it better for consoles at the expense of PC gameplay. This is the same hack and slash console game that comes out every other week, it has nothing unique or interesting about it.

I can't help but remember FF13 when I played this game. Like FF13 Dragon Age 2 isn't a bad game, but the only thing I feel playing it is disappointment. The things that made origins such a fun and unique *PC* game are gone. In its place is a hack and slash console game. The graphics are straight out of 2005, and poorly optimized. The UI is terrible and made completely for consoles. Like Mass Effect 2 the classic rpg elements are almost completely stripped out of the game. The only character you equip is Hawke. Your equipment choices are more restricted by class than in origins. The detailed dialogue system is gone, your given 2-3 word statements that are labeled paragon, snark, or renegade. Everything that changed was changed for the worse. Bioware has changed since the EA buyout. The great RPG elements of their games are being phased out for broader appeal, and it just makes me sad.… Expand

I would like to start off by saying that while I do not regret buying Dragon Age 2, I do regret paying $60 for it. This game is not worth the $60 in it's current state, and the writing at some points is downright terrible to a degree of which made me want to kill small animals.
On to what I do like:
I find that the game is in many ways better than it's predecessor and one of them is companion inventory. Along with Mass Effect, it's inventory management system was a complete mess. With the removal of said problem, the game got considerably easier to play. Another bonus was the visual aid to the dialogue options. Sometimes things are difficult to decipher when just words, or the small description isn't enough. The combat is smoother, the dialogue entertaining, and the storyline immersive. But there is still one problem.
Text.
The massive blocks of test.
Stop doing this BioWare.
I bought a game to play it, not to read several novels worth of text.
I give it an 8/10, but will change it if the game does not receive its much needed patches.… Expand

If you play more than 6-8 hours it is good, if you play more than 12-15 hours it is really good, and if you play 35-40 hours are you finished :( Its a nice game, down play the demo and say it sucks ore play 2 hours and say it sucks...after a while it gets really exciting and tactical more than DA:O.
PS: I not kidding you i have played each RPG the last 20 years, Dragon age 2 is good!

Diiiiiiiiiiisaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaappppppppppppppppooooooooooiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnntttttttteeeeeeed..... before any was a must buy bioware... from today that changes

Very disappointing. A complete step backwards from DA:O in every respect-- graphics, gameplay, characters and storytelling. This was a rush job, and it shows. WoW has better graphics, and better storytelling too. For me to say that about the company that gave me the original -and- Mass Effect is....well, I would say I was angry if I wasn't so depressed. Is -this- the future of BioWare games?

I'm afraid for ME3.… Expand

Don't beleive the people giving this game 10/10 it is no were near a 10/10 game their just lying to you at best this game is a 3/10 this game has been dumbed down so much how can they call it an rpg game its just complete and utter rubbish as im said the people that are giving 10/10 are just lying buyer beware

Let me start the review with a quote from the content description by the BBFC: "Throughout DRAGON AGE II players are constantly hacking and slashing at enemies". Hack&slash, this accurately describes the combat in Dragon Age II. The dialogue system has been dumbed down. It offers three choices: good, bad and snarky. Dialogue related skills like coercion are gone. The customization options have been reduced. There is no race selection for the main character. Several passive skills beside coercion have been removed (as well as some crafting skills). It's not possible to change the armor, boots, gloves and helmets of your party members. The player is cooped up in one city (Kirkwall) for most part of the game. There are a few outside locations like caves, which all have the same layout. Kirkwall is split up into several areas. Whenever you leave an area, you get a menu of other locations to visit. There is no sense of travel or exploration. The play time is considerably shorter than Dragon Age. Story and characters are sub-par Bioware standard. There are many flaws in Dragon Age II. Bioware has overly simplified the game and its mechanics, to make it more accessible to the mainstream casual market. They dumbed down the good features of the first game like dialogue system, customization, combat system and added the bad features like enemies appearing out of nowhere and awkward underwear love scenes to the second game. The original game was an epic journey, with memorable characters - the second game is an epic failure. Don't waste your money on it.… Expand

This is not a sequel to dragon age, it a new story based in the same universe. Some thoughts....

1. Huge amount of copy/paste levels. All the environments are the same used over and over and over and over. Takes place in one city (region). 2. Characters are lifeless, you don't really care anything about them. Very bland backgrounds

3. You only have full control over the main characters inventory. 4. They basically threw out everything in the first game and started from new. Only the lore seems the same.

If you have not purchased this please wait for the bargain bin. Not worth a 60.00 buck price tag.… Expand

Heres a Realistic review from someone who played the game on mostly nightmare/hard difficulty so didn't suffer from the 'button mashing' hack and slash crap people claim it to be, but it simply isn't . The Dialog is somewhat drastically dumbed down from the first, you can only be a goodie goodie, a clown who doesn't take **** anything serious, or an ass, there is no in between like the first, i.e. it adopted mass effects slightly less than interesting dialog system bioware seem to love so much. The combat on hard and nightmare is NOT a hack and slash, on nightmare EVERY single encounter has to be micro managed or you will die, on hard all minor encounters can be done with minor micro management but all bosses require full micro management again, the combat is much improved to DAO, its far less sluggish and much more fluid so its a definite plus, DAO itself was just a tedious slow hack and slash on normal/easy anyways so to claim different is stupid. The plot is quite a bit weaker than the previous one, there doesn't seem to be much of an overall plot to the story and it seems second rate from what I would compare to most Bioware games and this looses it major points in my book, for the most part it was very generic and sometimes boring and predictable. The inventory system is dumbed down as in its mostly only about your character now, but honestly thats personal preference, I liked it much more than I disliked it, as it removed a lot of the tediousness from DAO. Graphically, in some cases its improved upon over the original, in others its just bad, the constant reuse of the same bland generic 'block' city really made it get tedious at some points and they reuse the same 20 or so areas over and over and over and over and over, until your eyes feel like they are bleeding. Its not a horrible game, I did however enjoy origins more, but the combat in this was definatly an improvement, just it is a total hack and slash on normal/easy no other way to put it, if you want a true tactical RPG experiance you have to play Nightmare/Hard. I give it a 6/10, some improvement, a lot of dis improvement from the original in other area's of gameplay… Expand

Indecent release.
Bioware loses all respect for its fan base and is now releasing a broken outdated and boring game.
On every area, it is far worse than the original. Less choices, ugly graphics, linear and short, 90% of the game is basically boring and easy combat sequences: it is no more than a Diablo ersatz but without the fun.
A piece of garbage and a shame for Bioware.

I was very disappointed in Dragon Age II because they changed or removed a lot of things that I enjoyed in the first game. Some things have been improved like inventory management but the highly stylised character animations are a real turn off.

2
Bioware is asking Russian players to raid Metacritic and raise DA user score .
Here's the link: http://www.bioware.ru/2011/03/10/dragon_age_2_vote_on_metacritic.html
You can use Google translate, if anything.

Sorry, Bioware, but your Bio-bots with green scores doesn't make this "game" good.

My main gripes with this game are the combat system, the recycled environments and the lack of choice. I don't mind the flashy new feel of the combat, but the enemies-popping-out-of-thin-air -system is cheap and underwhelming. In my mind an RPG is supposed to promote game play where positioning and tactics play a major role. This was possible in DA:O since the enemies you saw where the ones you were going to fight but now reinforcements pop out of no where blowing tactics out of the water. One might argue that it's there to crank the difficulty up, but that's just wrong. There are many ways to make a game more difficult which are not as cheap as this. DA:O was plenty difficult on the hardest difficulty without this system.

Lets get to the recycled environments. I don't mind having to visit the same place a few times, but when you have 3 templates for a building interior which are used for 20 different buildings it gets old and fast. Same goes for caves etc.

This game also lacks one of the most important aspects of RPG's, actual choices that affect what happens in the world. There are some minor things you can decide on, but nothing that truly affects the world around you. You can solve a situation a few different ways but in the end the result is almost always the same.

A lot of people seems to think the story is something horrible but I don't share that view. It's not a great story but it's also not a complete train wreck.

There are a lot more flaws in this game like the VO acting which is done without emotion, uninteresting characters and bugs.

Don't get me wrong, it's an OK game, but it feels very rushed. The sad thing is I know Bioware can do a lot better than this.… Expand

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"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

the game is very disappointing. The graphics seem dated, the music is ok, the game-play is simplified and poses no challenge at all for experienced rpg gamers. LOTS of the recycled content. it is the same layout for all caverns, almost all houses, and almost everything has the same type of texture applied.
But the City Hub system is the worse, i never seen so many loading screen in my life. initiate quest in district A , goto hub, Loading, do quest in district B, goto hub, Loading, finish quest in district A. This system makes the game a chore. just go play DAO this one is just plain boring.… Expand

Dear EA, why you think i'am so stupid to buy THIS говно некаÑ

Mindless, dull, boring and generic are the first words that come to mind when playing this game.
There is literally nothing good you can say about this game, absolutely nothing; the story is boring, the characters have very poor personalities and don't add much depth to the game, love interests are there to appeal to "mature gamers that play mature games" and don't add anything to the story either, the characters themselves look somewhat decent with the texture pack, but the areas and surroundings feel very dead and generic. And oh wow, the UI, it feels like I'm playing **** alpha, it is just that bad, most custom WoW UI's (hell even the regular one) look much better than this piece of **** Luckily I didn't pay for this piece of **** as it truly is depressing for a company like Bioware to **** out a turd like this. I'm still trying to come up with something good I can say about this game, but nope, I just can't do it.… Expand

I can't describe the level of disappointment with this game. I've bought every Bioware game in the last ten years and thought they can go no wrong - how wrong was I. Dragon Age 2 is a bad game and a terrible sequel. The developers tried so hard to pull in the casual crowd that they changed and destroyed almost everything that was so beautiful about Origins. As a result we got exploding bodies, combat where you have to pause the game every 2 seconds in order to be tactical on higher difficulty levels, ridiculous waves of enemies, reused environments, bland companions, uninteresting and illogical story ..... i could go on and on.
Stay away !!… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. A little dissapointment for this game im not suprissed for thisgame its been a big hype and im from begining been sceptic this game is not bad bad very bad graphics,simple combat,not so good story and many people wil sad that this games is bad but its not but bioware im dissapointed… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. First let me explain where my review comes from: I found Dragon Age: Origins by accident. My husband was playing it, it seemed interesting, as a bit World of Warcraft and Fable fan, I could get on board with the levelling up, gaining skills etc. On my first play through, within ten minutes, I was engrossed in the Dwarf Noble Origin- I screamed when my brother died and when my other brother turned against me, I swore at the screen and vowed vengeance. I play for the story, not so much for the combat. The character development and plot drives me, and DA:O had this in bucket fulls as well as giving me loads of room to create my own back story, present stories (what's happening in camp etc) and future happenings of my Grey Warden. The same, however, cannot be said for DA2. I tried to view it away from Origins, I tried to judge it withot bias, even though I knew the changes were happening - I tried to avoid all spoilers and even avoided the demo. I wish I hadn't. People say not to compare it to DAO, but it's a Dragon Age Game, it's the same franchise, it even has the number 2 after the title, so yeah, people ARE going to compare it. So compared to DAO the whole game just feels shallow and empty. There is no big bad guy that's pressing you to complete tasks, that's urging your game play forward. DAO allowed me to feel that if I moved away from my PC when I came back the Darkspawn would have overrun Ferelden and all would be lost! DA2 makes me feel that I can go away and never come back and everything will still be the same.
Below is a lit of things that I want to pass comment on.
* INTERFACE is pretty looking and very sleek. However, I don't like the positioning. Minor personal thing.
* COMBAT ANIMATIONS I'm a 29 year old woman, not a 14 year old boy. Really, the flashy kicks and the exploding mannequins just took the p***. Bodies just don't explode when you stab them, nor do their heads and limbs fall to the ground like broken mannequins. It's a game aimed at the 'Mature' market, not 'Teen'. COMBAT itself is tedious. I fight a group and I go phew!... then suddenly there's freaking ninja style drop down waves of MORE bad guys to fight... really? I have to go through the same fight THREE times before I can go on? Bored now. Especially as I DON'T CARE about combat in a RPG game. I'm playing a role, a character, I'm building a story. Sure I want to cut the bad guys down, but c'mon!
* AREAS - repetitive, boring and dull looking. I liked the day/night switches though, but I miss being able to jump to the 'World' map tho.
* DIALOGUE - UGH. The wheel needs to go. NOW. Voice Acting needs to shush. The Actor was good, she did well, but I felt I was watching someone else play, instead of me. Hawke never feels mine.
* ARMOUR - like that you can hide helm, don't like that armour is not customisable. * ROMANCES / COMPANIONS. This is one area that interests me the most. I LOVED the different companions that DAO provided. They all stood out, all had their own personalities, all added a little something to the story. I felt connections with them - with DA2 it seems that you're TOLD you have relationships with them once you've met them. I romanced a certain mage, who told me in Act 2 that for three years he had lain awake each night aching for me... REALLY??? I told you you were handsome, but other than that, I really haven't spoken with you - 'cept in quests. The romances in Origins made you work for them. You had to say the right thing, you had to stroke their ego a bit, you had to listen to their stories, enquire, and learn about them. This is just a quick fix. On the COMPANION front, the banter is good as we're walking around, you tend to learn more about them from that than you do from talking to them. It's more a we're TELLING you what's happening instead of SHOWING you. However, VARRIC - I want him in my life full time. I had him at my side the whole way. The only other character I enjoyed hearing the story of was Aveline, which surprised me as I didn't think I'd like her. I felt disconnected with the rest, even my sister - she was apparently my best friend, but I didn't KNOW her. Also I miss the 'accidental', sometimes awkward, talks. I HATE running to a home for a chat.
* STORY - ahhh the big one; the thing you watch a movie for, a reason you read a book, the whole point of my playing a game. To me Story is the most important element of a game. After the first 20hrs of playing I still didn't really know where the game was going; I just had to get enough cash to go to the Deep Roads on an expedition that lasted about an hour of game play, if that. By hour 35 I have completely lost interest in WHY I am playing this and I ended up closing down and restarting Origins. I will finish DA2 some day, but it won't be any time soon.
TLDR? Overall a 5 - lots to do in game, but no REAL point to it so far.… Expand

Its comparable to offline single player generic MMOs. Are you trying to make Dragon Age 2 MMORPG Bioware? Planning to sell DLC/Patch to add more contents Bioware and fix that MMOrpg-style battle? MMo can do that for free, showing that your game is not really that complete in term of deliverable. But , hey, there is a good new, there always next time. good luck with DA 3.

Its like this, the developers didnt even try, you fight the same enemies over and over again, the fights are all EXACTLY the same, you run into a group of mobs, with 1 or 2 mini bosses, kill a certain number of mobs and one more wave of mobs will spawn. EVERY DUNGEON IS THE SAME, they just shut off or open some passages and move a chest around, its like they didn't even try, Dragon Age Origins was a good game, so they capitalized on its success by taking a **** in a box, throwing some glitter on it and selling. Oh and they obviously payed of quite a few reviews. DO NOT BUY! THE DEVELOPERS SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES!… Expand

This is not a game. Bioware is selling you a $60 EXPANSION PACK.

The major problem with this game is REUSED ASSETS that are of a very small number to begin with. I hope you like fighting bandits, zombies, revanents, quanari, and the occasional dragon because that's literally all that there are in this game. Not just that, but the faces, armor, and weapons are almost completely reused from previous games.

So, while your using these reused weapons to fight reused monsters, I hope you enjoy REPEATEDLY exploring the same locations: there's the town of kirkwall, of course, and there's one map for the coastline, one map for a cave (that is reused at least five or six times), one map for the sewers, and one map for the deep roads. THAT IS IT. You are constantly revisiting the same places over and over.

Now, the story itself is...not bad. Largely forgettable--about on the same level of Jade Empire's, but more predictable. The main quest line is bogged down by tons of mini-quests that seem ripped from your favorite generic MMO--go here, crawl through the same rehashed cave map, kill this guy, come back to me. Combat is fun at first, but quickly turns dull. Enemies either die way too fast for any kind of strategic input or have giant health bars that take minutes to whittle down. I turned up the difficulty to hard, even though I consider myself a casual gamer, to try to make combat more bearable. It doesn't. It just makes it last longer. Enemy AI is non-existent. Melee guys charge you. Guys with bows stand in the back and take pot shots. That's all. Character's are pretty dull. Varric is awesome, and Fenris had his moments. The rest were merely bodies. Voices are disjointed, especially with Hawke (I played female--male might be better, I don't know.)

Graphics are meh. I'm lucky enough to have a DX11 card and was able to push it up, but the character models themselves are pretty uninspired and even the prettiest cave still looks like a cave, especially when its the same cave over and over and over...

All in all, I cannot in good conscience recommend buying this game. Everything about it seems like it was just put together as quickly as possible to make money.… Expand

What killed the game for me was the heavy re-use of area layouts. I'm all for re-using the same textures when generating area's of minor importance but to use exact mirror images of area's constantly is just down right criminal in a triple A title. Towards the end of chapter 2 and in chapter 3 I started to miss out on crafting components and codex entries because I was just over going to check out 'hidden cave number 3' that looked not only the same as hidden caves 1 and 2 but also other area's in the game i'd already been through multiple times. Wish i'd kept count of how many times I had to revisit sundermount and it's two caves that are the same anyway for example.

I can live with less companion customization, I can deal with the romances being disjointed due to time elapses, hell I can even deal with the fact that none of my decision really effect the gameplay in any real way but to only have a very limited number of area's in the game to begin with and then just re-use them over and over... unforgivable. If this was a vast sprawling world I'd happily accept it but if you sat down and tallied up all the area's and caves in the game the percentage of overlapped content is depressing.

As for positives I liked the skill tree layout, I found that to be an improvement. Combat was a little more refined, though the leaps in difficulty on some of the fights was a bit weird (if you can call just throwing more waves of enemies that appear out of no where or huge boss hp pools with easy to avoid mechanics difficulty of course). Some of the random companion interaction could be amusing, personally it fell short of the DA:O interaction but others surely would disagree which is fine, personal opinion there.

To sum up DA2, when I finished DA:O I immediately through myself into my next playthrough to see what else there was to explore. When I finished DA2 I tried to replay playing a more evil persona and couldn't even force myself to get past the 20 minute mark. Where as parts of my first play through felt like a chore due to the issues I mentioned above, every part of my second playthrough has felt that way.

Maybe it's because I fall into the catagory that has been playing rpg's for a very long time (as opposed to those who just jump on message boards and say they have to try to get credibility) and if a game doesn't have enough innovation it doesn't impress me or maybe DA2 is just lacking in general. Either of these factors could potentially modify my score, I can't rightly say to be honest. All I can say is at the Dragon Age 2 did not leave me with a feeling that i'd played an enjoyable game at the ending credits.… Expand

Hack and slash combat, bad graphics, terrible dialogue system which reminds me more of a guessing game ... And most importandly, story is not that great. Misunderstanding.

I'm kinda split here. The negative aspects cannot be ignored, and the actual price paid per hour entertained, cannot be ignored. I think I reached about ten hours playtime in the game before I started feeling really cheated. After this point it became less and less fun and the recycled stuff became more and more annoying. I wouldn't necessarily consider it straight ten hours of play time either due to abundant cut-scenes and what felt like a walking noncombat pace to go here then there.

So about $6 per hour of entertainment. I could pay $8 for a 2 hour movie ticket, this game can be compared to a slightly interactive movie...

Negative points: 1) Limited mob diversity. This includes AI. The AI for Assassins across the few mob types, undead, templar, insert faction here... are all the same. This shows with Undead popping healing pots. I bet all the archers and the ranged spiders have the exact AI/Abilities too. 2) Almost all mobs have previously been created and produced for a previous title(this compounds point1, why not finish the duplication you already started?). 3)Constant reuse of maps(I should have asked how many DVD's it took to install before purchase). I think the very first map in the prelude is even partially copied for the Wounded Coast map. Caves are done over and over with the same mini-map on your radar(even though some passages are blocked), even the spawn triggers are in the same locations(So fail). 4)Crazy player interrupts. Fight a mini-boss/boss that takes a larger area than you can see or hit and this gets worse. You will stumble and get interrupted if the Dragon walks next to you. Don't forget about getting stun locked into an invisible wall in that reused cave map. I'd also like to add that I noticed quite a bit of Dragon Effect 3. Watching some of the interaction with the characters looked exactly like the model movements in ME2. A lot of the character models felt very ME2ish, not just the male Hawke and human male Shepard. Don't see it yet? Order a drink at the hanged man and then take Shepard for a drink somewhere, same exact interaction/body movement. I understand the whole concept of not reinventing the wheel. But you don't want that to visually creep into totally unrelated titles. With the amount of copy pasta in this game(AAA title I might add), the developers fail IMHO, because it should have been out at least six months sooner. Or I guess the blame could be put on the tracers, I mean artists. I'm feeling quite lazy so I'm not gonna list the positive points in my review, and there are some. Like EA/Bioware I'm not gonna finish what I started/promised. Too bad I can't make large profits from duplicated-half-finished reviews. I will finish by informing reviewers that said something in the effect of: "Revel, savour and bask in the brilliance; this is a game that no gamer can afford to ignore. Everything here is bigger, better, brighter, faster, longer, sicker, cooler than the series has ever been before" You can find your check in the corner of the round room, but first bend over real quick. And metacritic here's to you stripping all my newlines from 3.277k characters to create a wonderful wall of text for everyone not to read.

tl;dr Metacritic gets a critic.… Expand

I just signed up to write about this game. I have beaten it, every quest possible and I have completed Origins. The only thing that connects this so called sequel and Origins is the plot at some point, the rest...Im afraid is gone. First thing that kicks the faithfull fans in the nuts is fights - its no longer a well thought battle with deep tactics...its a SLASHER. Is it a good thing? Probably. But the fights, even though fast and flashy, are not memorable - wave after wave of 5-6 faceless enemies (who appear out of this air...yep magic) start to bore after about 1 hour. In the origins you could talk about one battle for 20 minutes, this one - "well I clicked on the dude and his head flew off"...The graphics are not as bad as people say - I mean how would you improve it? Everything looks alright for me. Everyone knew about the lack of customization, so lets forget this issue. The characters in the game are decent with back stories...now lets talk about the REAL PROBLEM - AREAS...I cannot find a good reason for developers to make 2 damn caves which you will have to run through OVER and OVER AGAIN! So lets sum it up:

In this game: Decent Story and Characters (+1)
Decent graphics (+1)
Voice actors did a very good job (+1)
Fighing techs (would be +1 for Xbox/PS but on pc not so much)

there you have it - areas are: Denerim is grey textures, 2 caves, a couple of deserted areas with respawning enemies.

If anyone at Bioware is reading the reviews...guys I will pay twice as much for the next game if you make it more like Origins, I am deeply dissapointed and sad...I couldnt find a game which weill really "take" me and then I bought Origins, so when I heard about 2nd part I was so excited you wouldnt believe...And I get this mindless unfinished H'n'S… Expand

This sequel is really disappointment, absolutely not at the level of the first chapter. The gameplay is simple hack & slash console game, boring landscape, repetitive dungeons...

This game has been a serious disappointment. I was a big fan of DA:O, it had its faults, but all in all it was an excellent game. DA2 looks to me to be a rushed job, the story is...decent. Some parts are interesting and makes you want to see what happens, but its only a few. - The conversations the user have with the npcs are sometimes good, most times really really bad. The conversation wheel and its options does not reflect what Hawk says at all, and mostly this was annoying since the reaction i wanted to give during the game wasnt reflected by my character. This also helped to distance me from my character, and helped ruin my experience. The characters that was so good in DA:O, is by my opinion in DA2 just there to help you in the game and to progress the story. They are uninteresting and dull. Their stories of how they came to be doesnt grasp me at all. - Combat isnt all that bad. I like the fast pace, and the fact that mages actually do more than just stand still and point their stick looking angry at whatever needs to die. Rogues are superheroes, able to jump distances that would make spiderman impressed. They can also teleport, wich could be handy for a thief, but not viable at all in my opinion. This and the fact that warriors swing their swords as easy as a twig ruined the combat "feel" for me. But what they did with the mages was a plus. Tactics wise its idotic. The camera ruins it by making it a challenge just seeing where ppl are, not to mention trying to make a character attack a mob. The game was played in hard to mode to have any challenge at all. - Graphics is ok, alot don't like em but i found em decent, but the fact that i had to manually download high res graphics was for me personally a setback, and a sign that PC users was not their main target at all. Menu systems reflects this aswell as i see them made for consoles and not a mouse. The game developers decision to reuse areas got to the point of annoying, tedious and just showed a lack of imagination. My conclusion is that bioware and EA just simply failed this time. They tried and failed miserably. This kind of game might have been good enough in the 80s, but nowadays most users are expecting more than this. I can't even call it a good attempt since i personally spent more time wanting the game to be over than i wanted it to continue. Its for me definatly not worth a 2 playthroug, it was barely worth 1. i will not recommend this game to anyone. Simply because they had so much going for them with DA:O, but instead of improving the things that made that such a great game, they decided to remove everything and make a game of inferior quality.… Expand

One word, disappointed. The gameplay, story, mechanics are all just plain boring. Bioware should of took a page out of blizzards book and done an open beta prior to releasing this game. The huge backlash from the community could of been avoided if they would of done so. Is it the worst RPG Ive ever played? No. Could it of been better if it wasn't rushed out the door? Absolutely. To the critics giving it higher then an 8.. you should be ashamed of yourselves. I highly doubt they even played the game. Not one comment on how Bioware reused the same dungeon mapping over and over.. seems like something worth mentioning. DA2 gets a 4 just because Isabele is as hot as a videogame character can be.… Expand

Poor writing, poor environments, copy pasted dungeons, bad graphics, awful fighting system, this game really is not worthy of being made by BioWare. The company that made Mass Effect and Dragon Age 1, should have known that this was an abomination, but they released it anyway. Truly a waste of money, steer well clear.

The PC gaming market is disappearing and we are becoming more and more of a console based world. The PC had its prime but is is diminishing faster and faster with each passing year. When I bought this game, I did it with the trust that Bioware would not disappoint, but instead a worthy successor to the first game in the series. What I got for my $60.00 is a rushed game that has been stripped of immersible storyline, graphically simplified for idiots, a combat system that is cool for about 10 minutes, and in short a
game that I am having trouble finding the motivation to even finish. The game lacks an interesting story, interesting characters, interesting quests, interesting tech trees, interesting equipment. This game at best should have been an expansion on the first game simply following a certain character, much like Awakenings, but instead they have already tarnished this series with this deplorable piece of garbage. I had a lot of respect for Bioware until now and the only thing I have to look forward to on the horizon is Mass Effect 3, which I am now worried may have the same fate of Dragon Age 2 in being a rush job. Pasta save Shepherd.… Expand

Do not expect DA:O here!. After reading some of the critic reviews shortly after DA2 was released I was excited and decided to buy DA2 and boy was I disapointed. Do not believe everything you read! I am not sure why there is such disparity between the critic reviews and the user reviews but I wish I would have waited. They really dumbed this game down. There are some things that I consider improvements such as giving Hawke a voice, the lip sync is good and it fits the characters but the complete lack of dialog options kills it. This really is a watered down version of DA:O.

Don't expect to be able to equip more than a couple items on your party members or change how your party members look, don't expect to have any meaningful tactical combat it's just a hack and slash that requires little to no thought in that regard. Don't expect to spend as much time playing this as you did on Origins if you played it. Don't expect to get your money's worth. This really lacks the depth I felt in the original. I wasn't drawn into the game like I was in the original I was very disappointed, especially how critics claimed they made several "upgrades" fight like a spartan bull crap. Fight like your a god more like it. I wouldn't check this out until it hits the bargain bins or buy it used. Definitely save your 60$… Expand

I am really disappointed of the way Bioware is going with one of its major brands. The action parts are ok, but there is little to nothing left of the Dragon Age feeling. Story Failures, Decisions from DA:O are not correct imported. People alive that died... and such things. Boring Hack&Slay Action. DA2 isn't really a PC RPG Game anymore, it is a Console Hack and Slay RPG Action game. With bad Interface and technical Problems. Also the level design repeats constantly, i only counted 2 or 3 different maps for caves and buildings. Monsters and Models of DA:O/A and DLCs get reused, partially as Boss Monsters. Altogether they used what they had, made some little additions and sold it for the full prize.… Expand

This game has NO HEART in it. The world is boring. No NPC to talk to. Full of one liners. All you do is stare at the mini map and follow in one direction towards the marker. There is no exploration. There is no good loot. In fact they made it easy by letting you find a bunch of junk items and a "SELL ALL JUNK" when visiting a merchant. What's the point of picking up junks simply for selling? Normally junk is considered items you end up not using but could be used if you had plans or skills for it. They really took the "role playing" out of RPG. All that left really is just a vanilla game. You cannot customize your party equipment. You are forced into using certain roles for your companion if you want to maximize their potential. The actions of this game also go so fast that it feels like you're in a freaking shooter game with the ability to pause. Don't get me started on the DLC money making scheme either ... ... and be careful with these reviews. Google "dragon age Chris Hoban" and see for yourself. This game should rank somewhere in the low 7s as average score due to the graphics.â… Expand

Combat is ridiculous. Animation speed increased to the point that no strike animations are visible. Intended to speed up combat ... which it doesn't, since the increased speed is offset by higher monster hitpoints and swarms of enemies.
also, combat has been "coolified", meaning that every standard attack is the 'Fallout 3' equivalent of 'Bloody Mess', meaning that a killing stab with a dagger causes humans to explode.

unconvincing encounters with different factions ... you somehow are constantly forced to kill potential allies. also swarms of enemies, even if you're just on a evening stroll to the nearest tavern.

also, maps get recycled over and over and over. sure, you're revisiting old locations very very often, but you'll see the exact same dungeon map on up to five DIFFERENT locations!
Lazy!

No, this game is a complete fail in the categories Bioware tried to improve.… Expand

fast paced combat, tapping 'a' to win, some romance, simple gameplay, yea i think some might like da2.
but for me, da2 it's just a piece of filth and horrible way to spend $60. I ain't gonna buy me3 or da3. ;p

I'm quite disappointed tbh. I managed to finish it in 17hrs on normal, doing most of the side quests. After playing the Mass Effects, I was expecting something a little longer. Thought the story was a bit so-so.

Copy/Pasted dungeons and building interiors : Check Inability to customize companion armor : Check Very limited companion interaction : Check Uninteresting protagonist : Check Less than half the abilities/spells compared to its predecessor : Check Lack of tactical combat : Check Mediocre storyline : Check Boring side quests inserted into the title for the sole purpose of increasing the playtime: Check

To sum all the above up, Bioware going down in flames : Check

I had high hopes for this title and I really thought that it would improve as I continued to play the game. I was bored from the start, but instead of writing a scathing review after just 10 hours of play I decided to give the game a chance and played the game to completion before writing this review. At times during the game play experience I found that I was trying to force myself to enjoy it. The game really does feel incomplete and buggy at times and never truly draws the player into its world. I loved Dragon Age : Origins despite its few flaws and I was hoping that this game would improve upon that winning formula, instead of taking one step forward it seems that Bioware has taken 2 steps back with this title.

Bioware and/or EA were not generous enough to give this product the extra year of development that it probably required, so I'll be generous and give it a 5 out of 10 score which is more than it deserves.… Expand

It's rather unfortunate how this game turned out. The combat is no longer tactical, it simply requires you to hit your abilities as the cooldowns refresh. The story is bland, and makes it difficult to press on, nothing "hooks" you. If this game had been released as a stand-alone title not under the Dragon Age name, it wouldn't have been nearly as disappointing. Also, 27 different DLC's at launch is rather excessive and a terrible trend to follow. I'm all for DLC, but I want game expansion that couldn't have been included on the disc.… Expand

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Okay, let me preface this by saying that i am not one to prescribe to the mob mentality of trolling video game forums and dumping heaps of praise/criticism on games unnecessarily. I understand that video games, like most things, are subjective and may appeal to some but not all. However, i feel overwhelmingly compelled to point out the flaws in this title, because of the depressing trend of the "consolization" of the big AAA releases, to the point that finding quality PC titles yields as much fruit as searching for unicorns. What makes this bastardization of a title so much more rage inducing is that the original dragon age was a game which harken back to the roots of PC rpg's and offered an epic story strategic gameplay and a level of complexity that was engrossing and satisfying. This is not a true sequel as much as it is an unveiled attempt to draw more people into the game by delivering dragon origins "light'. To call this game an utter crap storm, might be a bit excessive, yet that is the feeling i got when i played the first ten or so hours of the game. I really hate this game, but not because it is a bad game. On its own, played on a console, it would be an awesome experience. However, it should not be the sequel to what was one of the strongest pc releases of the last decade, when it is in fact as step back. My point in writing this little tirade, is to add more voices to the growing mass of pc gamers becoming frustrated with the iterative releases of FPS like COD:BLOPS and the horrible ports of console games to PC. I am sick and tired of the graphical enhancement, and innovation possible on PC's being hamstrung and tired needlessly to the 5 year old and aging consoles. I want a game that is not cognizant of the limitations of consoles and designs a game with them and mind and only later attempts to sling the crap together to release it on PC. That is why i took this game back to gamestop got my money back and preordered the witcher II. That is a PC game and is an example of what a PC game should look and feel like. So while dragon age 2 is not a bad game it is not the game that DAO was and anyone looking for a similiarly satisfying experience should look elsewhere. console = 8 PC = 5… Expand

I am really disappointed of the way Bioware is going with one of its major brands. The action parts are ok, but there is little to nothing left of the Dragon Age feeling. Story Failures, Decisions from DA:O are not correct imported. People alive that died... and such things. Boring Hack&Slay Action. DA2 isn't really a PC RPG Game anymore, it is a Console Hack and Slay RPG Action game. With bad Interface and technical Problems. Also the level design repeats constantly, i only counted 2 or 3 different maps for caves and buildings. Monsters and Models of DA:O/A and DLCs get reused, partially as Boss Monsters. Altogether they used what they had, made some little additions and sold it for the full prize.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. What a waste of money... terrible DX11 performance on Fermi cards, lackluster story, trapped in a single city for the entirety of the game. The game drops you on a brand new continent never before explored in the previous Dragon Age and what does it do? Lets you fast travel between all of four small districts and a handful of recycled "wilderness" areas. The game is ~95% side quests, while the main plot can be played through in about 2 hours if one of the main quests didn't FORCE you to do side quests right when you arrive in Kirkwall. If that wasn't bad enough, side quests keep returning you to exactly the same generic "mansion", "sewer", or "alley" and force you to fight generic and unchallenging enemies re-skinned depending on the flavor text you got at the start of the quest. Also, if you had held out hope that BioWare would make a game for adults then you'll be sorely disappointed. The game is insultingly juvenile with respect to sex and violence. It's just an uninspired mind-numbing hack-and-slash grinder. It's as though they took everything that's hated about MMOs and dumped it into a singleplayer game for general consumption. BioWare lost a lot of my respect with this release and all the marketing stunts pulled with it.… Expand

Dragon Age Origins was one of the best games I ever played and I was really looking forward to Dragon Age 2. After playing the game for around 8 hours I started skipping all cut scenes and dialogues because i could not stand it any more. The fights are boring. How could the magazines give such high ratings?

Don't believe the hype. This game is so riddled with lazy design choices that it's insulting. The designers thought it would be a good idea to copy-paste the same dungeons over and over again? Not to mention most of the fights play out EXACTLY the same way: kill initial wave and then kill one or two more which swarm in from all directions. There is no variety. For 60$ bucks I was expecting a triple A release and what I got was tepid shovel-ware. I have learnt that you should always base your purchase off user reviews and not the "critic's" reviews as they're all under the publishers control. I'd give it a pass or at the very least wait until the "platinum" edition comes out which will also be cheaper and have all the DLC.… Expand

FIRST IMPRESSIONS (5/10):
Installation and configuration of the game went well. Once starting the game, there was a mediocre amount of character visual choices on character creation looking adequate. The amount of character types, however, were somewhat limited. This was true for Dragon Age 1 as well, but was even more streamlined/simplified in this game.

In the middle of character creation, you were thrown more or less into the game in a fairly creative manner. But really, isn't "starting off with a bang" getting a little old? And what is wrong with a little cinematic to put the player into the right mood? And for some reason, the feeling was a little "rushed" into completion. All in all: Not bad, not good. The classic 5/10, industry standard. GRAPHICS (5/10): In my personal opinion, not the most important aspect of the game. At least not in pure technical respects. With that said, Dragon Age 2 appears to be a little dated compared to other action games. And compared to Dragon Age 1, it did not show any particular improvements. Even though the graphics are nothing special and lacks new features, they seem to have polished the look of what was there fairly well. All in all: Somewhat dated, well polished. 5/10, industry standard. VISUAL APPEAL (3/10): Different from the more technical quality of the graphics is the visual appeal of the game. More or less an artistic viewpoint of the graphics. The landscape, city and indoor environments look everything from ok to good. But it lacks a soul. Non player characters do not respond well to what happens around them, they stand around stiff and bland. Too many locations were recycled throughout the game making it appear artificial, a dead thing. No improvement in weather or wind furthers nails the lid on this coffin. There are also vastly too few types of enemies which contribute to making the game appear without variation. All in all: 3/10. Somewhat lifeless, fairly bad. SOUND (3/10): What happened to the music in this game? The sound effects and general environment is overall ok. Some taunts and tidbits is played too often and is too repetative for non player characters in many areas. But it's not bad, just not anything special. The music, however, is near being described as horrible. There are only a few tunes I want to bother listening to. I am usually into listening closely to ingame music for the atmosphere, but the music in Dragon Age 2 did nothing for me. All in all: 3/10. Sound effects are ok, the music is pretty bad and boring. STORY (6/10): Heard it before, nothing special. However, creative narration and overall well done. There is simply nothing remarkable about the story in the game. In many places, it is easy to see that the player really has no choice. And even though there are some different choices to make that counts in the game, there isn't truly many "world-spinning" actions. The voice acting is pretty good, but sometimes a little bland. It is a little hard to care about the characters in the game. This might be because there are few choices, especially in the start. Personally, most of them annoy me and I would send them somewhere to die if I could. What breaks an otherwise decent story, is that the quests related to the main story is pretty far from entertaining or interesting. Personally, I simply want to wander off into the wilderness. Overall: 6/10. Even with some major flaws, the story is above average. Keep in mind industry standard is bad. COMBAT AND CAMERA CONTROL (2/10): Is this an RPG? No. It's an action game. But I say: Rate it as an RPG because it says so on the "box". *CACKLES NERVOUSLY* Where to begin... Let's keep it simple: Every fight is the same. Boom! A bunch of enemies drop down on your head. Your mage spams the same spells as last time and your fighters/rogues mop up, you need to push a few buttons. Boom! Group nr. 2 drops on your head. Repeat. Where is the development? What new strategic or tactical challenges are there? Since when was spawning encounters in your face good game design? Why is everything solved by doing the exact same thing over and over? Even bosses are mostly fairly simple - both in regard to defeating them and to how they behave. WHY THE **** DID THEY MAKE THIS SO CRUDE AND REPETATIVE? AND FOR GODS SAKE, WHY MUST EVERYTHING SCALE? Another annoying lack of feature is the strategic view of Dragon Age 1. With enemies dropping on/in from all directions, some would say it would be nice to have a strategic view camera. This further underlines the action game transformation of Dragon Age 2. On the positive side, combat is responsive and dynamic. The characters do what you tell them to do, and they mostly do it without any delay. There are a good amount of fun animations and moves whi… Expand

I made an account on this website just to post a review for this. I heard about the game and was initially excited. I thought it would be another good RPG from BioWare to hold me over until Skyrim came out later this year. Huge pissing disappointment there, I uninstalled this putrescent piece of garbage after less than an hour of playing it. Right off the bat you get greeted with totally flaccid graphics and dialog, randomly thrown into a mind-numbingly stupid hack and slash zombie encounter. Right then and there I knew I had wasted my sixty bucks. Safe bet I won't be buying any BioWare products in the future, even their much anticipated MMO. Btw, it's pretty much certain that their reviews were bribed. This piece of **** doesn't even deserve a 30%. Back to playing RIFT and dusting off my Oblivion and Morrowind when I wanna play a decent single-player RPG!… Expand

The combat system revamp does not bother me. What does bother me is when party members don't ****ing hold position when I tell them. Let me give you an example: fighting the first dragon you come across in the deep roads. I want to kite the boss back to a better position, I tell my party to HOLD POSITION, meaning that unless I get a loading screen, or a cut-scean, they should not move from that spot under any circumstances no matter what. What actually ends up happening is that the horrible party AI system decided to teleport them to me three times in the course of no more than a 15 second walk from where I told them to HOLD POSITION. Since I'm playing on nightmare and my party for the most part is completely useless anyway, due to iffy at best aggro mechanics, (I have abandoned my warrior since she does so little damage, once the 10 second taunt is up, it all runs to the casters anyway), and party member's AI being too stupid to move out of the way of 1 shot kill boss mechanics, I have abandoned my party almost all together. This has let to the already nearly non existent party member story lines, to be nonexistent all together since it is not worth it to bring them with me.

Furthermore the lack of being able to give your party members armor, has made it so that my mage has both twice the armor and defensive stat of the game's intended warrior tank, making that party member useless (she is also a bit of a stuck up **** anyway).

My largest gripe BY FAR is how lazy the level design team was: FIVE count them FIVE times, the game reused the EXACT SAME DUNGEON. I don't mean, oh you have to go back into the dungeon, no, a completely different area has the EXACT SAME DUNGEON layout, even the set pieces are the same. This game has no re-playability at all, $60 is a rip off for this piece of garbage, maby $20 is worth it. I wouldn't know, I'm glad I torrented it or I woudl have been pissed off that I wasted $60.… Expand

Dragon Age 2 is not DA: Origins. Origins had one of the best plots ever in an rpg and you literally cared about every character. Most of all you had a goal. A purpose you cared about. Even the greatest games failed in this area (Oblivion comes to mind). There are only a few changes in DA 2, the details of which you can hear screamed about in every other review. One of the most annoying is that you cannot equip the character outfits. This was made according to the designer because people all dressed all their characters the same and it bored him. So now your choice is.. to dress your characters the way He wanted you too. In addition the combat is seriously dumbed down. Rather than fighting a few powerful enemies and using tactics to defeat them mostly youre fighting waves of weak enemies with a couple "bosses" thrown in. On Hard or Nightmare difficulty this is still almost as interesting as the original game because on the tough fights you literally act/pause/issue orders/act/pause/issue orders. It isnt a game breaker though. What breaks this game more than anything was an egotistical designer deciding he knew better than the customer and forcefeeding us a lame plot you dont care about, his personal preferences on character equipment, and truely bizarre recycling of content. You only have afew areas to go to in this game and you will go to them again, and again, and again. Note: you can check out his softball interview to verify all of the above.

Also missing from the game is the sense of danger, urgency, stress in making decisions. In DA:O You cared about every decision and fretted over them. You even had regrets at the end of the game no matter which decisions you made. In DA2... not so much. After a while you feel like a mercenary running around killing things for.. you dont know why. You might as well play wow or one of the other senseless click click click faux rpgs mmorpgs out there.

Having said all that: This game is fun. Its not worth the full price and it shouldnt even be mentioned in the same breath as DA:O, Mass Effect, Baldurs gate etc. But if you can pick it up for 10 or 20 bucks.. its certainly worth it as its isnt Unfun. Perhaps Bioware will decide its customers are more important than the egos of its employees and fire the person responsible for this disappointment. Lets hope so because bioware is without question the best RPG company in the business.… Expand

I liked the original Dragon Age, and most other Bioware titles. This game, however, was a huge disappointment. As a prospective buyer, you may wonder about the disconnect between user reviews and professional review scores. I would put it like this: Dragon Age II is like the student who goes to class, memorizes all he needs to know, and does well on the exams, but never actually understands the material. In the same way, DA2 has a story, but it fails to come together, and at the end you're left wondering "That's it? Did I miss something?" DA2 has locations, but as early as the first Act, you will have seen every single one of them, and hopefully you liked them the first time around, because you'll see them again, and again, and again. DA2 has sleek skill trees allowing you to customize your character, but the gameplay has been so dumbed down (even on harder difficulties) that there's just no incentive to try things out, or if there is challenge, it is of the frustrating, repeat the same thing over and over kind (boss fights where the boss has ridiculous amounts of hitpoints come to mind). I could go on, but most of my complaints have been voiced already: this game is not worth your money.… Expand

I am so flabbergasted, that I have no clue what to write about this game. The first Dragon Age is probably in my top 5 of all time, so this had a lot to live up to; and seeing BioWare as the company behind it, who was I to predict a disappointment? They've proven, with Mass Effect 2, that they can do sequels. And not just "sequels", but sequels that, in my opinion, outdo their predecessors.

Sure, the combat is now much more fun and responsive this time around, but that's about the only thing they've changed for the better. Where is the well-written dialogue with the companions? Much of my time spent in Dragon Age: Origins, was spent exploring the past and the future of my fellow companions, yet here I only get to visit their homes twice during the course of the entire game, leaving many personalities woefully unexplored.

And where are the compelling characters? In Origins, we had a wide array of interesting personas, yet here we have only a couple of memorable people - most of which I'll probably forget, 'less I force myself through more plays. Fenris was one of the first companions I got, yet he was still a complete stranger to me in the end; I knew nothing about him or his wants or anything - except his tunnelvisioned hatred of mages. The romances don't work at all. After trying to flirt around with Isabela, over the course of what must be seven or so years in the games time, I finally get to bed her. Twenty minutes later, she tries to bed a cameo from Origins. What the heck? Talk about a lousy pay-off, immediately making me regret ever trying to sweet-talk her.

The characters aren't as complex and compelling as in Origins (or any other Bioware-title). An example is Meredith, who's presumably the big bad: she hates mages. Why? Because that's what templars do, and she's a templar. We're not really given any reasons why she carries this extreme hatred, but alas. Compare her to Loghain, who wasn't even the main evil force of Origins: a haunted war-hero, standing up against a dynasty he saw as everything he fought against in his days of glory. He had an understandable motivation that we, as players, could understand, yet still find appaling. Meredith in contrast is just a McGuffaw-carrying evil force. To think this is the same developers/writers that gave us Garrus, Mordin, Jack, Tali, Morrigan, Sten, Leliana, Minsc, Jaheira and Jon Irenicus is just mindbaffling beyond belief.

And don't get me started on the recycling. You'll run through exact replicas of boring mountainous-cave-with-paths-randomly-blocked and earthy-tunnel tens of times in the course of the game. Clearly a sign of this game being rushed to the shelves. Also, all combat-encounters will have you swarmed with enemies randomly teleporting in or rapelling down building, completely making you disregard what could otherwise have been a good revamp of the combat-system. Kirkwall is a really desolate and lifeless city, yet whenever combat is near, you're suddenly swarmed by thirty bad-guys - and after that, sixty more.

Is it a horrible game? Not at all, but it's treading around so far below what it should/could/would have been that it's a travesty and a major disappointment. To consider it's the same company that made the masterpieces of Baldur's Gate 2 and Mass Effect 2, can't do anything but leave you completely dumbfounded. What happened, Bioware? You used to be the pinnacle of the great gaming industry, but now you've rushed out an unpolished turd.

This single game has made me decide not to pre-order Mass Effect 3, for fear of it being just as unpolished a game as this - and I likely won't buy Dragon Age 3 (did I mention that this ends in a **** cliffhanger?) if it's met with the same scorn as this installment of the series. Bioware singlehandedly ruined my blind love and trust for them in one sweep, and it's one I doubt they'll be able to reclaim anytime soon.

Final words: Go play The Witcher, Baldur's Gate 2, Mass Effect 1+2, or hell, even replay Origins instead of buying this. Don't trust the obviously paid shiny reviews.… Expand

The developers tried to combine hack and slash and role playing with predictable results. Predictable, evidently, to everyone but them. It's hard to convey how ironic it is, because we went through the exact same thing with Bioware in 2002 with Neverwinter Nights. Dragon Age was supposed to be a return to roots after the fan reaction to the weak first installment of Neverwinter Nights, which was essentially a shotgun marriage of the Baldur's Gate franchise and elements of Diablo II. Fast forward to 2011, and we get another mishmash that tries to be all things to all things to all people. No doubt the Bioware developers sold themselves and their "ideas" to their corporate overlords as faster, better and cheaper and would take the world by storm. Either that, or they knew it was a half-baked cash-in to fill in quarterly revenues in the lull before bigger and better releases later in the year. Don't believe the big name reviews. The 80+ average here and at Gamerankings is far too generous. Big titles like this seldom get the honest criticism they deserve. DA2 does have high production values, and maybe that is what they are actually reviewing. The voice acting is top notch, and it has many individual scenes and lines of dialog that show there was some talent at work. But while that may be a good start for an RPG, DA2 doesn't deliver a cohesive story overall. It's more like three short stories in one book. But if you are a diehard fan of the genre, then maybe DA2 is still worth the price of admission. Just be forewarned that you see many game elements that will leave you baffled and wincing.… Expand

Severely disappointed in this game, which is absolutely nothing like Dragon Age: Origins. This is basically a Mass Effect beat em up in the Dragon Age setting (except with worse graphics, storyline, voice acting and gameplay). Bioware have unfortunately dropped their standards to unbelievable depths and 'Consolofied' what was a once brilliant PC style RPG. Gameplay is so simple you can do it with your eyes closed, no tactics just button mashing. Graphics are very bland, brown, basic and repetitive. Just look at the majority of NPCs up close and they look like they came from Tomb Raider 1! And how can you call this an RPG when all you can explore is one tiny city? Pathetic. This game is a huge mistake on Bioware's behalf. They seem to have rushed this out, maybe to make some quick money to further fund development of SWTOR?? I have played every Bioware game I can think of, and this is the first one ever to go straight back to the shop for part exchange. Sorry Bioware, but I no longer love you... you have failed me miserably. To coin a phrase from Darth Vader that seems to apply here, "Now his failure is complete".… Expand

I'd imagine that the main reason that people are paying to play this is because its main character on the poster looks like Gordon Freeman. The game looked very promising- but this was anything but fun. The fact that this game was allowed to advance past the "script writing" stage is beyond me.

Worst Bioware game ever. Rushed and pandering to the lowest common denominator. Feels like they just dialed it in and tried to dress it up with lots of frills but no substance. I worry for Mass Effect 3 and The Old Republic.

I haven't seen a more confused collection of polish and poor design choice since, well, ME2.... Like BrutallyHonest points out: Bioware now design games via marketing research and focus group responses! This is a game entirely designed with the ADD addled, "ewwww, look at the Shiny object!", celebrity crotchshot demanding, Corporate pablum swilling, Generation Shallow, in mind... In otherwords: Gaming's "Brave New World". Existing fans? **** 'em. This, to me, isn't about the console-ification of gaming... nor, is it about being upset with a company trying something new... It's about sacrificing quality and depth to appeal to a greater market. Some people just don't like RPG's... and, it's ridiculous to sell out on what made you famous in the first place, in the hope that you'll expand your market into that group. Out: game affecting choices, In: "Choose Your Own Inflection'... Out: Epic storytelling, In: episodic confusion... Out: any attempt at graphical realism, In: graphic novel inspired art style... Out: tactical combat, In: Devil May Cry enemy wave spawns... Out: depth of any kind, In: skin deep surface veneer... And, On and ON it goes, ad nauseum.... Cutting out the "RPG", only to replace it with ideas from other game genres, in a sad attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Again, as I stated earlier, it's the maddening production decisions I'm having the hardest time with! Why work so hard to develop top quality voice acting... and then decide to reuse the same 4 - 5 minimaps 7, 8, 9 ^*%#* TIMES EACH!?! IT MAKES NO SENSE! Polish this... be mind bogglingly lazy with that! I mean, seriously, WTF! There are more headscratching story flaws in this game than ALL OF THE PREVIOUS BIOWARE GAMES COMBINED! Some of the plot twists are beyond obsurd. Choices, in this game are merely illusions... The dialog wheel is nothing more than changing how your character's voice sounds as the exact same oucome occurs 95% of the time IRREGARDLESS of what, or how, you say shiite. Bioware is in decline, folks. Mark my words. More fans have been alienated by their recent turn of direction than any new ones have been picked up. A 5/10 rating SOLELY for the games level of polish in comparison with the game industry as a whole. Ptew!… Expand

How can you possible go from something so awesome to this pile of digital crap, Bioware? Seriously! The story, characters, setting, and...well everything have been dummed down so horribly it's an insult to the original. This looks more like Bioware made it for 9 year olds.

Nice job **** it up, Bioware. Nice job.

Under any other name, I would've probably given this game a solid 6.5 or 7. Sure, it's got its share of shortcomings, but it was still much more fun than, say, stabbing red hot needles into my eyes.

As a sequel to Dragon Age: Origins, however, I give this steaming pile of manure a 1/10. This game fails to follow up on (let alone surpass) DA:O on virtually every level. I feel lied to and cheated that Bioware/EA would use the success and critical acclaim of DA:O to trick hardcore RPG players like this. DA2 is completely watered down and diluted. This is literally a console port and a rushed one at that. Diminished customizations of party members' gear, stats not as detailed anymore, quests are simply kill or fetch stuff and lots of childish gore. Clearly, if Bioware/EA wanted to break into the Call of Duty market, by all means, go ahead. They could've simply called this game something else...anything else. But the fact that they masquerade this as a sequel to one of the best - if not THE best - modern Western RPGs is a direct insult to the faith I had in them. Also, watch Mark Laidlaw's (lead developer, Bioware) interviews post-launch if you want more insult to injury. I… Expand

A game so totally devoid of all the depths and charm that made the first in the series interesting that it is a wonder to me how Bioware could shove this out the door. It is so dumbed down in quests, background and especially combat that its just a travesty. I feel combat is in such a state of disrepair with teleporting waves of enemies that all tactics and thought is effectively eliminated from the game, all there is left is a "press whatever cooldown is ready" retardations that its worthy of a bungled flashgame

Score (3.1)… Expand

In what feels like an EA money grab the story is uninspired, the design is repetative, and the 'dungeons' have been reduced to a grind of defeating wave after wave of the same enemies. I think this is probably the worst game I have played from Bioware and will remain a dark stain on their otherwise impeccable record. Is this what EA does to their studios? Makes them creat BAD games? BAD might be an exagguration but it is definately not worth the 80~ critic average it recieved.… Expand

...silent...still silent cover my mind. I buy this game before they come, and that is my mistake. But i believe, what bioware said...no more my "dear" bioware...I newer buy your game before they come, even if you give me half prize. I WANT MY MONEY BACK. This game is some joke.

Very angry, and unhappy player.

Terrible game on more levels then one. I do not recommend it at all, very linear unoriginal and unimagined game. It is an obvious cashcow and nothing more. The game morphs into and simple point A to point B fairly quick, with hours of back tracking and very dull fetch quest. The story starts strong but quickly turns into something you would find amongst the indie titles of the RPG world. Its a mess and nothing about it warrants your time.… Collapse

Bioware releasing usual junk. Copy-pasted environments everywhere. It's shocking that they'll try to make DA3 also in 18 months, so expect more copy-paste. Uninstalled after 10 minutes, avoid like plague!

Would be a 7 or 7.5 if not for the huge drop-off from Dragon Age 1. Story--7. It focuses on the conflicted hinted at in the first game. Some of your decisions will carry on to future quests, but not nearly enough influence in the end. My defense for this is that the developers clearly have a trilogy in mind, so the 2nd one has to end the way they designed. But yes that's extremely frustrating, giving the feeling that all your decisions and effort was worthless. Hey, that's life sometimes. Character interactions--9. Banter in your group is fully voiced, and really lets the character jump out. It was also fulfilling to see some of the old characters from the first game make an appearance, some quite important. Graphics--8. I couldn't run it high or on D11, but it was a significant improvement on the original. Exploration--3. The killer for a lot of players. Dungeons were reused over and over again, unacceptable for such a big name release. When freely roaming the areas, NPCs and environment felt less interactive.Combat and talents--8. Solid, every character, even ones of same profession, felt different enough and close to character.

All in all, the game is entertaining and has its moments. However, it fails as an RPG, and it doesn't deserve to stand beside the original Dragon Age. Sure glad I didn't pre-order this!… Expand

People are talking how bad DA2 is, completely overlooking all those good things it did for us, gamers.
Like for starters, showing us what review sites and reviewers should be avoided, then it also.....it also.....
nope, I'm all out good things. Anyway, as you see there is indeed something good came out of DA2.

Complete and utter disappointment. Dragon Age: Origins is one of my favorite titles of all time and one of the only games I enjoyed so much that I'm passionate enough to still be angry with it's rushed, lackluster sequel years later. Everything about Dragon Age 2 is simply awful, quite honestly. All the love, time and effort put into DA:O is simply stripped away from DA2. Devoid of life and character, Dragon Age 2 was simply made and only made to cash in on the success of DA:O.

So, what specifically is wrong with DA2? Everything. The combat is now reduced to anime-like fast game play where tactics aren't really needed (I played on Nightmare, PC), re-spawning waves of enemies that drop out of the sky in combat, re spawning enemies every time you zone in and out of towns, it's just ridiculous, tedious and extremely annoying.

The story is unfocused and has no idea what it's doing. Hawke is not likable in any way shape or form, you perform meaningless tasks all game until near the end, which is completely rushed and unrealized. The ending is pathetic, quite honestly. There are a few interesting characters you can go on with, but there way more bland and uninteresting characters then there are interesting, the only decent ones in my opinion happen to be written by David Gaider, who did not have much to do with DA2, but wrote the majority of DA:O. Anders was completely butchered and DA2 just doesn't have interesting companions compared to pretty much everyone in DA:O.

The inventory system and skill system have been dumbed down, and BioWare likes to boast that they made every skill useful and that simply is untrue, it's not better than DA:O in any way shape or form. Restoration magic is almost gone besides "heal and group heal", and combat is now flashy and "awesome" and no longer tactical.

Oh, let's not forget about the DLC. There is more DLC weapons and armor in this game then actual armor in the core game. There is only about 5 models for every armor type and weapon in the entire game, pathetic.

All in all, it's so disapointing that this game was released. It's worse than Deus Ex: Invisible War.… Expand

Dragon Age Origins had its number of flaws. One would expect that these flaws are reduced/removed in its sequel. This is not the case. Most of these flaws are still present in Dragon Age 2, including new ones which Bioware labelled as "innovative ideas". One of these "innovative ideas" is the new story structure. The story of Dragon Age 2 is told in a frame narrative. This might have been a good feature, if it was implemented correctly. The primary and mostly only reason Bioware uses a frame narrative is to rationalize the time-skip which happens during the game. Another "innovative idea" is to confine the player to a single city called Kirkwall. This city is split up into several areas, which can be accessed through fast travel on a "world" map. The areas aren't connected directly, thus the city feels like a small place. The city is too clean and empty. There is supposed to be a refugee crisis, yet there are almost no refugees in the streets. The game spans 10 years and Kirkwall never changes. There are certain NPCs which stand around in the same spot, spouting the same stuff for years. This is immersion breaking. Here is what I expect from a city, which basically is the whole game world: A huge free-roaming and lively place, which features a dynamic day and night cycle with tons of NPCs who have a daily schedule. This city should change dramatically over the course of the game. Now let me get to the next flaw of Dragon Age 2: Reused environments. This problem was already present in Dragon Age Origins to some extent. The developers have outdone themselves with Dragon Age 2. Caves, warehouses, back alleys are being blatantly copy/pasted throughout the game. This problem is even more grave, considering the small game world. Combat: The combat system is more action-packed. Enemies spawn out of nowhere. You kill a group of enemies and another wave of enemies appears, it is dull and repetitive. Dialog: The conversation system has been imported from Mass Effect. You are reduced to good, evil and humorous answers, instead of a large number of responses that weren't black and white in Dragon Age Origins. Clearly a step back compared to DAO. Party: You can use up to 3 party members. The problem is, that you can only change the equipment of the main character and not that of your party members. If there are party members in a RPG, then I expect to have full equipment control over them. Graphics: The graphics are a mixed bag. Bioware should consider licensing a game engine (e.g. Mass Effect series), instead of using their own game engine. Sound: Nice score and good voice work. Violence and Sexual content: The blood and gore content has been increased compared to DAO (exploding enemies, even more blood on your characters after a battle) the sexual content is still on the usual Bioware-underwear-sex level. Bioware could learn a thing from CD Projekt's (e.g. The Witcher 2) approach to sex in video games. Conclusion: Dragon Age 2 turns out to be a mediocre game, due to the number of flaws. The reason for most of these flaws is probably a short development cycle and "new innovative ideas", which were included to appeal to a wider audience.… Expand

This proves to me that the "Critics" dont actually know what they are talking about. This was supposed to be one of the best sequal titles to come from Bioware / EA and sadly it wasnt even close to being anywhere near as good as Dragon Age: Origins.

I love bioware, i think they are a fantasic RPG company and have great games under their belt but they dropped the ball with this sequal bigtime.

There is nothing positive to say about this title, its simply one of the worst games ever made, one of the worst sequals to one of the best selling and biggest epic RPGs of all time and thirdly one of the biggest wastes of time any production team has spent on.

There is nothing good about this game, the graphics are substandard compared to the first game, even if you download there "Hi-res" pack it still looks about 6 years old in terms of modern day graphics. The voice acting is terrible really terrible. But thats not the worst part. The worst part is the combat. Yes in DA:1 the combat was pretty basic but you had to be smart, tacticicly outwit your foe and try to survive as well as take them out. But in DA:2 that dont happen unless you play it on easy , then every battle is tedious your cool downs on your potions are too long, as are your healers spells and on top of that you fight wave after wave of bad guys that seem to just pop out of the floor. the boss battles are a laugh too. They have a silly amount of Hp and after 20 mins of hacking and slashing you find yourself pulling your hair out and looking for that 1 hit 1 kill cheat. The gear system is awful you cant even gear up your party members but have to search every vendor under the sun to find them "upgrades" or progress story with them to unlock certian benefits (utter nonsense). On top of that you have to travel to your compainons "base" to talk to them about something even if you are standing next to them you cant interact at all, unlike the freedoms of the first game. The menus are clunky the character development screens are poorly laid out and your ablites you get are laughable and barely make a difference in the fights, most of the time its 1 click kills with 1 or 2 spams of special attacks and you usually win....after about 20 mins.

Its terrible. Bioware let there fans down here, themselves down and most of all, everyone hoping for a fantasic return to the world of DA, only to be stuck in a castle / town for the 30 odd hours of boring gameplay, and when it ends. Well lets just say it has the worst ending in video game history. They took a great game / series like DA and turned it into a laughing stock. Bioware better not make the same mistake with its other releases otherwise they will be knocked off there pedistal rather quickly.… Expand

If I want to be generous 3/10 is the maximum I could give this game. Ignoring its predecessor entirely, the game still fails to do what it says on the tin - the game is not immersive; you feel massively disconnected from the main character you create and, as such, from every event that takes place during the game. The graphics are unforgivable even with the PC patch from Bioware. The controls remove strategy altogether and leave PC gamers with a repeatative and boring experience for the sake of Xbox player experience. The few events that wound have tied you to the character are not seen and are often referenced in past tense, happening off-camera, removed to get you right back into running around the same dungeons and cityscape over and over and over again with little to no feeling of accomplishment! Bioware has sacrificed a good idea, probably at the behest of EA and a developer who needs some sense beaten into him with a tree trunk, to create something that seems to only give the Xbox gamers any sense of a worthwhile experience - such a massive shame considering that PC gamers got Bioware off the ground and made them what they are. My biggest concern is that they listen to only the Xbox reviews and assume they've done well. They are steadily alienating their patrons and will soon find their figures dwindling as though someone dropped them off a sheer cliff if they dont get their act together. Funnily enough, CD Projeckt did what Bioware tried to do in the first 30mins of Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings, except they did it right, completely immersing the player. If you have to know what happens in Dragon Age 2 then wait until it drops heavily in price! If you want an immersive RPG played the way gamers have come to expect RPGs to play, buy Witcher 2 - even at full price.… Expand

As a RPG player, this game should not interest you a little bit. If you haven't played Dragon Age Origins, go do that and forget about there is a sequel. Dragon Age story ends there, this game is only showing us how we can kill the same kind of monsters we met at DAO and how we can kill in large quantities. This game is an action game do not expect RPG. After this game, I actually begin to hate the new face of Bioware.… Expand

I have always enjoyed Bioware games...until the last couple of years. This game includes multiple 0-day DLC that are integrated obtrusively directly into the game. You will receive a quest, which will then ask you to give EA your credit card information to complete. The combat looks wonderful but is regrettably very shallow; enemies drop directly on top of your characters (spawn in waves), making any types of strategic approach impossible. Hit and miss chances are not even calculated, taking "press a button and something awesome happens" to it's logical extreme. This has the unfortunate effect of making every fight a grueling battle of attrition that lasts quite a long time. The story leaves much to be desired; it's admirable that Bioware wanted to do a more personal story, rather than a grand epic. However, this sentiment falls flat on it's face in multiple ways. The first several hours of the game involves running around town and doing MMORPG style quests for random NPC's, this was very tedious and boring; and it took me quite a long time to build up the motivation to continue. Interactions with companion characters and NPC's are dumbed down into clearly marked categories. These seem to be Goody-Goody, Smartass, and Evil. Many NPC's can't be interacted with at all, and spout one line of dialogue when clicked on. This is by far the majority of the NPC characters in the world, and it's very reminiscent of SNES era Japanese RPGs. The environment is very limited, and very often copy pasted. You will travel the same caves and interior rooms over and over. Optional content is very shallow, and while fully voiced always results in you killing people. As mentioned earlier, the quests over-all have a very MMORPG feel to them. I completed this game in 25 hours. Due to Bioware's decision to strip modding capability from this sequel, I will likely never play it again. I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone, there are much better things out there to spend your money on.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. A very poor game, especially considering that BioWare didn't have to fix very much that was wrong with Origins anyway. The premise of Dragon Age 2 is fine, and at first glance seems to set the scene really well for any future sequel, and indeed would have made for a fine game if they hadn't completely dumbed it down for console players, er I mean, tried to 'capture a larger audience'. They took what was essentially a very decent RPG that had a few flaws, and turned it into a consolized corridor slashfest with wave based combat that fails nearly everywhere Origins succeeded.

Basically, I imagine it appeals more to teenage gamers (you know, the Call of Duty and Gears crowd) than to anyone looking for a mature and involving RPG. Speaking fairly, Act 2 of this game is the most interesting one because we get a good look at the Qunari, and their way of life. The skill tree is also much better in this game, although cross class abilities need to be implemented better I think.

Varric's Scarface scene in Act II is a high point, and sadly doesn't last long enough either.

The biggest areas where Dragon Age 2 completely and utterly fails however, is the much talked about (and for good reason) shameless use of copy/pasted dungeons (there are basically 5 generic dungeons in the whole game that you keep revisiting over, and over, and over, and over...), running around a lot of corridors that are cleverly disguised as a city called Kirkwall that never changes over the ten years that the story depicts, limited interaction with companions who are on the whole shallow and uninteresting, and their quests consist mainly of 'solve my problem, then choose the dialogue with the heart option, do that enough times and we can f**k', every quest, no matter how trivial includes a quest marker that guides you to exactly where you need to go. This may be a good thing for some people but for me I just felt like it demeaned the experience...go here to plot marker, take out a few waves of enemy mooks, go here, more mooks, go back to quest giver, done.

Halfway through the first Act it got to the point where every quest, basically ran together in a big nightmarish mess of 'go here, do that, follow the markers, get paid, do it all again' format. Every RPG has it, but how the hell Dragon Age 2 manages to make it so unsatisfying I don't know.

The combat is a shocker, and deserves its own paragraph to emphasize this. Seems some people thought the combat in Origins was too slow, so here they have sped the pace of combat up to the level where your party resembles a crazed troop of crack addicted monkeys flailing about with greatswords, daggers and staffs, and waves of weak enemies who literally spawn in midair around your party and explode into bloody gibs as soon as they get hit. To compensate for weak enemies, the bosses get a million hitpoints and thus boss fights consist of whittling down the boss's healthbar over 20-30 minutes, pausing every now and then to fight a mob of weak minions while the boss typically goes somewhere you can't follow to launch ranged attacks on your party. Healing has been nerfed, with very long cooldown times which is really annoying and difficult to manage at times.

But by far, the worst offender of all is the story, which tries to take you confusingly through each act, then just as you're making sense of things, cuts to a fade-to-black screen followed by '3 years later' and wham the confusion starts all over again. Your choices are largely irrelevant as you get railroaded into a certain direction by the story, and it quickly becomes clear that this story is not going to continue anything that happened in Origins.

Also, as this is a point that infuriated me, the ability to import a save from Origins affects nothing save for a few cameos from about three of the Origins companions, which doesn't impact on the story at all.

There's a lot more wrong with DA2 but I don't have the time or inclination to yap on about them, not after wasting about 40 hours of my life hoping the game would get better. I played to the bitter end and have no intention of ever playing it again.

Final word. If you're expecting a sequel to Origins, this ain't it. DA2 had so much promise, I was actually expecting it to expand on Flemeth's plans that were alluded to in Origins, and thereby set the scene for an awesome Dragon Age 3, but no...it was ruined by a developer trying to appeal to as many people as possible, and also stinks of a big rush job to capitalize on the success of Origins. By itself the game barely rates a 5/10, but because it has a big fat 2 in its title and wasn't the sequel I wanted despite being marketed as such, I'm giving it 2/10.… Expand

It isn't a really bad game. But compared with DAO, Kotor 1+2 or BG 1+2 it is completely useless. Just another milestone on biowares way down to become a casual game company.

A consolized mess of sloppy and lazy game design. DA:O is one of my favorite RPG's ever, and ive been playing them since the atari computer. DA2 shares nothing in common with its predecessor except for the core IP.

some of the story elements were well done, but I can't give this game a higher score, because I felt betrayed as a loyal Bioware fan by what they did with thie "sequel"

Oh DA II, let me count the ways in which you are a terrible game. Well I can't, because mathematics has not progressed to the level necessary to quantify why DA II is the antonym of "good game" Imagine taking a good game, then making every single aspect of that game worse, then selling it again at the same price. Well Bioware seem to think that's a great business model. I would imagine most people think otherwise.… Expand

Dear EA.............We all know that you corrupt the poor developers who join your money-making operation, and I don't mind any more. I don't even care that you have sucked the soul out of Bioware, who used to be one of the best developers in the industry. It hurts, but I can deal with you killing talent in the way that you do. It's in your nature. I'm beyond complaining.............. But killing Dragon Age? After all the promise the first game had? All that potential, just wasted? Even you, EA, must recognise that you've crossed a line too far this time.............. So go ahead. Kill my favourite developers. Drain the life out of the whole industry if you have to. But leave Dragon Age alone. For the love of Ferelden, please, stop Mass Effect-ing what was once the greatest RPG franchise of this generation. Even you have to draw the line somewhere. -Loco… Expand

Dragon Age II is like taking everything that made Dragon Age: Origins good, strip it away, add a mediocre mainstreamed gameplay with repetitive actions and environment, a story where your choices doesn't affect the outcome at all and the most boring overall game I have played in a long time. Yes, the combat is more action packed and flashy, but it ultimately is also a lot more boring, because it stripped away the entire strategic element. I speak this after completing the game on Hard and not needing any sort of healer or crowd control at all. A simple combo of damage, damage, damage and damage was more than enough due to the fact you can easily set up group kills with the Disorients or Frozen, easing up the gameplay even further. The game, is bad, and I suggest buying Origins instead if you're new to the Dragon Age series.… Expand

All I can say is - I played this for 3 hours - Stopped - and reloaded DA One
The story might be great if I had continued with it..maybe, but the gameplay mechanic and combat is nerfed beyod recognition.
Why? Bioware Why destroy the depth of a great game. You've been nerfing stuff since BG2 - what next? Pong? I fear for Star War the Old Republic - probably turn out with the gameplay depth of a spit puddle.… Expand

Everyone needs to chill out and put things into perspective. I mean honestly, I enjoyed it more than the first one. Everyone is only really trashing this game because Bioware changed the formula from the first one.