I've been enjoying DA2, even if some of the flaws are disappointing I find that the good by far outweighs the bad
it's a shame that nobody seems to be making old school RPGs any more but that doesn't mean the modern style RPGs are bad, they're just different. (personally I think RPG has always been a misleading label anyway as most games require you to play a role, same with our beloved adventure game genre, most games are about adventures. however that doesn't mean they are RPGs or adventure games) ideally it'd be great to have games of both RPG styles being released, but developers and/or publishers seem convinced there's not a strong enough market for old school RPGs. perhaps they're right, it's hard to say, but there's no denying that there are some disappointed fans
that aside, I do enjoy the faster paced combat in DA2, but apart from a few boss fights most of the combat consists of fighting lots of weak mobs who attack in waves rather than smaller groups of tougher mobs. a mix of the two in different situations would've been preferable, but maybe that's just me
the writing is everything you'd expect from BioWare, the story and characters are all well written. even Isabella has more depth than is immediately apparent (and she does try to hide it, she
wants to be considered shallow) and Merrill is just hilarious in some of her naive comments ("did I miss something dirty again?") there's also some genuinely tear-jerking moments and I'm not talking about the "oh this person I've known for 30 seconds just died" at the start (although it was sad to see Bethany die on my mage since I'd grown fond of her on my previous warrior playthrough)
the inability to change companion armour didn't annoy me nearly as much as I expected it to. their outfits suited them pretty well and did change over time, plus I have to admit in Origins Morrigan did look pretty odd in most of the other mage robes
my two biggest complaints about the game (the rest being rather minor) are firstly the timeskips. I can understand the reason for these but found that they skipped over too much, it would've been nice to have the option to play some of what happened during these. for example
Spoiler:a few missions for the smugglers or mercenaries during Hawke's year of 'servitude'
my other complaint is spoilerific quest titles. it's rather annoying when you start a quest chain and the title gives away what will happen several quests into the chain
Spoiler:a chain called Tranquility? and you have to rescue a mage? well I'm just so surprised to discover that he has been made Tranquil, I just did not see that coming at all...
really takes away some of the impact
but still, the good outweighs the bad, in my opinion at least. and I really love how a lot of decisions have unexpected consequences further into the game
Spoiler:I even had Aveline complain to me that I'd sold her dead husbands shield years ago. love that they thought about that, so many games don't
