The best RPG ever, you never played as fun and tactical party RPG combats, it's the biggest and most interesting town that you ever seen in RPG. There are many player choices with consequences on the story. The story is very well written and will make your eyes wet many times. Some companions are much more attaching than any companion of DAO.

DA2 fixes many weakness of DAO, the fights are better balanced and more deep. DAO fights was ridiculously easy and now at Hard difficulty they are hard and at Nightmare it's a real challenge. In DAO the companions was sort of dead puppets once out of the camp. Now they are lively and really participate to the adventure, and even, your companions will influence the evolution of the story. In DAO you had only very few build per class, now in DA2 you have plenty more builds making you character building a lot more fun and deep. In one play through DA2 isn't as long than in DAO, because of the multiples alternatives coming from player choices and companions choose the replays are much more interesting and setup a longer play value with replays.… Expand

My rating of 0 does not reflect the game's quality. Metacritic's (as of now) user score of 3.0 does not reflect the quality either. Merely, we as fans are severely disappointed in the delivery and intent of Dragon Age II and are expressing it accordingly. If I were to be honest with myself, I'd probably give it a 6/10, which is still fairly horrible.

Here's the sad truth. Some, if not mostly all, the highly ratings for these games are just paid reviews. You can see evidence for yourself on the forums. This is sad and completely unnecessary. Instead of shelling out cash to make your game look good, why don't you use that money to actually make the game look good, honestly and truthfully? I have no idea where it all went wrong in the development of this game. The graphics are a step down from Origins, the combat is a joke (unless playing an Nightmare, which is exactly the problem) and worst of all, the RPG element of this game is hideous. Only 3 dialog options, really. Are you kidding me here, BioWare? Maybe, maybe, this would be forgivable.. if it weren't for the 5 words or less sentence that represents that dialog option. Case in point, the story telling just atrocious.

I sincerely hope BioWare learns a lesson from this. Hell, I hope they end up releasing ALL DLC for free, in hopes that more people will buy the game and their fan-base will half-heartily turn the other cheek. But, it's gonna take a lot more than free DLC to fix this problem. Rather, I think they should just consider it a loss, make a great Mass Effect 3, and then somewhere down the road revisit Dragon Age and make it the game everyone wanted to be.… Expand

It`s not just a sequel. It`s more like a rebirth in fast-paced style.

Great storytelling makes you feel like you are really there and care for the cast. The atmosphere is superb and Bioware again nails with voice acting.

Some will not like some changes in combat, but works for me.

Awesome game, a must buy for people who loves a great story.

Dragon Age II is a great story with lots of emotion. I love the characters and the graphic style. Combat is really good ... one of the best combat executions for an RPG. Best of all words ... I just love the game.

Think of everything that made Dragon Age Origins a great game. Now subtract all of that and you have Dragon Age 2. The EA Games hammer of crap has really taken it's toll on poor Bioware, and it shows. It's a complete lobotomy of the RPG genre. Striped down to nothing more than a casual action RPG.

For shame I say.

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. While DA:O was actually interesting story wise, it really didn't have engaging combat.

But for DA2, it had amazing combat, but most of the time the quests are boring where waves upon waves of enemies are thrown at your repeatedly, and the story is sooo terrible. There isn't many places to explore either. It looks like Bioware didn't even try to do anything about the story.… Expand

I say briefly - this is not a RPG game, it's a true slasher. Beautiful, dramatic, easy slasher with a very simple plot. Epics? It is not. Romance? Very little. Tactics in battle? Minimal. Conversations with the characters - in its infancy.
Make a better once more DLC for the first part, please.

Excuse me for my poor English.

(skip to the paragraph starting with "Then along came DA2" to skip the DA:O-related intro) As a PC gamer, DA:O was my introduction into RPGs. And I have to say, even getting started was daunting to me. I had envisioned a vast open world of freedom, choice, adventure and fun, based on the reviews I had read and all the buzz I had been hearing about the game. Instead what I got with the first Dragon Age was a linear, repetitive, unimaginative and boring affair where nothing really seemed to come alive and "choice" was a thinly-veiled illusion conjured up most ham-handedly by uninspired developers. Also I did not care for the looks of this world and its inhabitants, which does not help immersion one bit (bland lighting, unimpressive structures, flat and unexpressive faces, goofy armor, ...). What got me the most though was a thing called "level scaling". Gone is the thrill of slaying a beast that once seemed completely indomitable, after having spent hours "training" your characters in preparation for your revenge. Instead everything and everyone simply levels up along with you. Disgusting. Then along came DA2. From what I was reading this true sequel to the Dragon Age saga promised to be substantially different from DA:O, and I was excited. Even though DA:O was a huge letdown, it had kindled within me the hope for something truly epic and inspired. I had been reading various outcries from die-hard RPG fans and DA:O fans, but since the latter game had disappointed me so these outcries only strengthened my conviction that DA2 might actually be different; and I might actually enjoy it. Not so. Take all the negative comments on DA:O above (uninspired, unimaginative, linear, ugly, repetitive, devoid of actual choice, ....) and multiply them by any factor you may deem impressive, and you have DA2. * The corridors of DA:O have become even narrower and more confining; * The level design is unapologetically lazy (copy-pasted dungeons and caves); * The choice of story-progressing replies has dwindled to a basic three; * The graphics are at a playstation 2 level (although the overall style has improved); * Combat has been dumbed down to a button-mashing fest artificially rendered more difficult with mid-fight enemy spawns (only remotely enjoyable difficulty setting is "nightmare" but as said before the difficulty is artificial); * Kirkwall (where all but the entire game takes place) feels and looks artificial and devoid of any bustle and - indeed - life itself; I could go on and on about how much I have started to loathe DA2, but in the end it really is my fault for pre-ordering a game which promised to be "different" but turned out to be merely "worse". Much worse.… Collapse

The first game was very good. This is just crap. I liken it to the step backwards neverwinter nights 2 was when compared with the first neverwinter nights.

It`s not RPG. Primitive 2004 graphics, primitive linear locations, primitive dialogues, primitive slasher, uninteresting gameworld, uninteresting story, primitive 2-button gameplay for idiots... BioWare is now very fond of money, but do not like their gamers. This game is a clear example on how a company maximizes profits and minimizes costs using a brand name. Money, money, money... The love of money has killed real RPG.… Expand

Dragon Age 2 just parody on Japanese-style slasher with elements RPG.
Roleplaying completely absent, the dialogues are boring, dull one type lokatsii.Eto just soulless piece of code on which I wasted attention and spent their hard-earned money.

this game is mass game culture triumph:
1..all game aspects are simplified - EA has to attract mass consumers
2. game was made really fast - productivity is important
3. Just about everything in this game feels as being below average due to above-mentioned; Playing this game is like eating Mcdonadl;s junk food; how about new term for this type of games - Mcgame? RIP Bioware

Thanks bioware for selling out and appealing to the mass majority of younger gamers. The addition of many scantly clad characters does well in appealing to 13 year olds. The over the top exploding gore and wildly unrealistic combat is also good at catering to the wants of hyperactive anime fans with ADHD everywhere. When I played this at a friends house I felt like I was playing a special exclusive version of god of war made only in japan but featuring a different protagonist 'hawke' the man who can swing a two handed sword with 1 hand like it was a tin butter knife. (Of course god of war was actually an action game, not an "RPG" trying to be one). Did you like the tactical challenge of nightmare in DA:O? Well we don't have any of that boring tactical crap anymore! No thinking and planning required! Just mash those buttons hard enough and you can overcome any battle! If you're really have trouble just grab your keyboard/controller hold it high and shout "Super sayian button mash activate!!" then proceed to repeatly smash the keyboard/controller into your desk/tv/monitor/friend (Maybe he'll explode into a blood mist like in the game!)

Whats next? Dragon Age 3: Path of the vampire god of war. Featuring cloud from ff7 and sepphiroth fighting together in their latest adventure to stop the twinkling vampire god edward (yeah twilight) from his vampire darkspawn invasion. Also featuring full frontal nudity from all your favorite ff7 and DBZ characters. If you buy the special naughty DLC for only $70.00 you can get breast enlargements to EEE+ (up from just DDD) for every female character and you get kagomai from inyuyasha as a new tag along sex slave companion.

Again thank you bioware. I remember when you made RPG's like Baldur's Gate, but you're right! Why make a good game when you can make GOOD MONEY!!!!… Expand

I do not typically preorder games, and this game has proven why that is a wise idea. I am of the crowd that thought that Mass Effect 2 was a downgrade from ME1 in the RPG department (but without a doubt a better shooter) and I cannot imagine how anyone who claims to like rpg's will find much of anything redeemable in Dragon Age 2. There is no longer any strategy to combat, no tactical camera, no tactical positioning. I would have been much more satisfied with a deeper, involved story based on the DA:O engine. Say a more polished Awakenings with considerably more content. As it is, I wish I could return DA2.… Expand

This is one of the worst video games ever made in the history of mankind. I feel like Bioware rushed this game too soon. The graphics are horrible, and not worthy a PC game of this day and age. The gameplay is 100% catered to consoles, just like the graphics. Furthermore, Bioware seem to have paid off Metacritic to remove several reviews which I find offensive to freedom of speech.

You'd think bioware would learn from their mistakes, but apparently they don't. Putting in a mass effect conversation wheel was possibly the stupidest choice they could have made, add a couple of copy and paste dungeons and N64 level graphics and you have yourself the worst game of the year. If they spend half as much money on developing the game as they do on paying of reviewers, they might actually make a decent game.… Expand

I'm a girl and I finished the game so I'll write from my perspective. I like smart games and this one wasn't so smart. The conversations were boring, hardly no wry humour, romance (Hawke and Anders) was rushed. The worst part was that you weren't able to speak to your heroes unless you went to their room AND you were lucky enough to see the yellow arrow above their heads. The tiny conversation was held and then it was just "back to normal". I've played Dragon Age: Origins and I know that they could do better. Srsly, were you saving money on voice actors? I also missed the camp or at least some house where EVERYBODY hangs out.
Secondly, I hated how the game felt like an action game. Well, it is. I hated it. It should be an RPG, not Half Life.
I hated the ending. There's hardly any continuity of DA:O and on top of all that, there's this unresolved ending. "so this is the story about the champion" - kthxbye. The story feels unfinished. And no, I won't buy the DLCs.
Revisiting old locations was boring. The city was awesome with the day/night system, but it was still sometimes boring.
The game was too dumbed down. Where was the button for selecting all party members? There wasn't any. I had to hold shift and click every one, which was annoying. Sometimes I selected all members and just clicked on an enemy and waited 2 minutes until they kill him. Boring.
I missed the camera from above. I missed being able to equip all party members. Collecting armor was no fun.
I liked the cutscenes, the loading screens, the art, the music. That's it. I suggest to Bioware that they merge DA:O and DA2 for DA3, if there will even be one.… Expand

Disaster of a game. The entire game consists of side quests in 1 city and 1 dungeon. Combat is just buttonmashing fest that requires no strategy at all.
Also, EA and paid reviews.

Two words: huge disappointment. While DA2 by itself might not be too bad by console standards, but it's absolutely horrible and degraded sequel to one of the best CRPGs. I really regret my decision to preorder. Spending $60 not only didn't buy me a good game, but also I've just spent the money to encourage developers of this garbage.

Linear slasher with copy/paste locations :(. - Story is boring, only some times you will see something interesting (only few last moments). - no CG videos, only some "animated pictures" like in cheap games - Dialogs are boring - Answer variants in dialogs doesn't affect anything - party member relation (friend or foe) is fiction... + battles are dynamic, I finished game only because liked battles
+/- graphic is nice, but locations are lack of details it is not RPG, it is slasher with dialogs… Expand

Bioware threw in all the bad bits in DA:O and Mass Effect 2 in a blender and gave us this abortion they call Dragon Age II. If you want a game that makes you feel bad for wasting your time playing such a piece of garbage then listen to all those paid for reviews. I will warn you that your efforts to want to love the game because it's DA2 will be futile.

Now I truly fear for Mass Effect 3. I can't believe Bioware actually agreed to put its name behind this shoddy product and dared to call it a RPG.… Expand

Dragon Age 2. What could possibly have been more exciting than a new bioware rpg? True, I wasn't impressed with Mass Effect 2, but the changes in that game (stripped down inventory, character interaction, ammo, etc) still worked because Mass Effect was a new game and the changes felt right to what they were trying to create. Unfortunately, this same ideology does not apply to a game that is supposed to be primarily an RPG. Rpgs are a very hard creature to pin down. Somehanics then a lot of games become rpgs. More relevantly, according to Bioware, this includes games such as Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed, which by the way, are not rpgs in any sense of the word and unfortunately were used as models for DA2. My defense for this position is that you have no freedom in those games to create a character who is your own. The ending has been decided for you, who your character is has been decided for you, where they've come from has been decided, and where they're going has been decided. An rpg must allow for freedom in the universe and DA2 fails horribly at that.

My biggest problem with DA2 without thinking about it as an rpg is that combat is terrible. Yes, they "streamlined" it and it moves faster. But you know what the sped up version of tactical combat is? It's hack and slash. And the game becomes a hack and slash not because of the way combat is mechanically implemented, but because each battle in DA2 begins with maybe 4 or 8 people appearing out of thin air, and then when you've killed a certain number of them another 4 to 8 pop out of thin air. What this means is that there's no planning or positioning involved in combat as no matter what you do, there's just going to be more people popping up out of nowhere to deal with. Aggro doesn't work as well as it should, there's very little healing (and it all has huge 40-120 second cooldowns), and the best option for winning a fight is to spam aoe spells until everything is dead. The story isn't compelling. A huge part of the game is just you running around trying to get as much money as possible. This doesn't go away throughout any part of the game. In additon, the choices in the game aren't anywhere near as important as they were in any previous bioware titles. But the worst part about it is that there's no freedom to really choose. This an RPG, which means there must be a certain level of freedom. Well, when you've decided who my character is and what they're doing and how the story ends (there's only one ending) I don't really have much choice.

This game is not an rpg. It is an action adventure game. If the Dragon Age series was supposed to be an adventure game this game would be better, but unfortunately it is supposed to be the spiritual successor to BG2. and the sequel to Dragon Age Origins (hence why there is a 2 after the title). The fact that it fails to be an rpg is heartbreaking and leaves you out in the cold asking, how did things get like this?… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. It not the dragon age 2, is a dragon age 1,5 maximum. A console crap.… Expand

Worst Bioware game ever. Balance is absent, RPG elements are generally absent. Some minor, yet sometimes strange improvements could not overcome the casual game play. So in short: 1. It is not Dragon Age 2. It is generally not an CRPG 3. GUI absolute sucks. Looks much more like road sings than the fantasy RPG GUI 4. Game balance is awful 5. Most of the "improvements" are making the game close to unplayable 6. Game play is generally lame and way to casual for CRPG

Still cant believe, that this is game by Bioware...… Expand

I laughed when I noticed the 84 metacritic score. Not from amusement but from a sense of irony. I don't know the going rate or method of review credibility for so called game critics, but anything outside of Rock-Paper-Shotgun is probably going to be heavily "persuaded" by more than just the game features if you know what I mean. As for the game itself, it simply did not impress or even live up to the mediocre flavor of the original I'm afraid. Bioware is really losing the touch, and this game is a victim of EAs policy toward game development more than anything… Expand

I've played this all of the way through before writing anything. I've always been a Bioware fan, but seriously, DA2 is disappointing and I cannot see how the bulk of review sites can ignore some its fundamental flaws. Granted I can see how the combat has improved for console platforms, but it's really the rest of the game that leaves me feeling irritated. For instance, the dialogue options and conversation interactions have really been dulled down - I assume this is due to the fact that Hawke is now voice-acted. I would love to sit down and talk with whoever came up with the 'sarcastic' replies for Hawke - he just sounds like an idiot. Taking the character of Isabella as an example - we get it, she is a sex addict - there is no need to constantly remind the player over and over again aside from the obviously intended hit with the younger male audience. There is no connection with the characters, you just don't end up caring what happens to them. The exception to this in my opinion is Merrill, whose dilemmas and underlying story fit in more with what I'd come to expect from Origins. The constant 'cameos' from older characters only reinforce the lack of interest with the supposed main cast of this installment. The story is definitely a lesser scale than origins, which makes me feel quite angry as to the marketing propaganda hinting at some sort of epic ascent to 'power'. Whilst the combat mechanics are a little more streamlined, as is item and inventory management in general, this doesn't fix the issue of repeated zones, reuse of assets, the low variety of enemies and the incredibly annoying 'walk-into-an-area-and-keep-spawning-stuff' ideology. Perhaps it is my fault for having expectations that were too high, or not checking beforehand that the entire game was essentially going to be set in one relatively bland city with a few outdoor areas which would be reused at periodic intervals as 'years' progress. I see a lot of the positive reviews being given here with scores of '10'. I just don't see why. Especially the 'OH MY GOD IM LEVEL 7 AND THIS IS AMAZING' - I too was still 'giving it a chance' at that stage hoping that it would open up and improve. Others suggest increasing the difficulty somehow compensates for the bad storyline and being locked into only a few zones just so that you can engage in slightly harder repetitive combat where on occasion people jump randomly from the sky, up from the ground or pop out of nowhere. I'm not a professional review writer - and I've never posted a review on metacritic before despite being a deidcated PC gamer for well over a decade. I just felt massively let down as a player and as a fan of DA:O that the experience of DA2 was quite simply a let down. Honestly it feels as if they sat down after the Awakening expansion and thought 'lets do that again with a new character and implement some of the ideas we couldn't fit into the scope Awakening - we'll call it Dragon Age 2'. P.S. Bring back more of the mage schools and spell combos. Why remove them?… Expand

I'm just so disappointed after loving Origins very much. The game was hasted and you can see that at every part of the game. EA should be ashamed of ruining such a fantastic brand like Bioware.

BioWare seems to be trying to go green with Dragon Age 2. Most of DA2's art assets, character design, item design are reused from Dragon Age: Origins. The game's level design is reused to the point that repetitious doesn't even begin to describe it. The combat is maybe the single saving grace this game has but even it starts to get tedious after an hour. Rushed, unfinished, released with DLC, $60.