One thing that puzzles me, slightly.
After the events of Act II, why are there a handful of Qunari standing unmolested on Kirkwall’s streets? Wouldn’t they be rather unpopular?
That’s a complete cop-out, though, and it’s implies a huge level of contempt for one’s customers. If you can’t make a complete story, then you shouldn’t be making one. It can still have links to a larger world, but not actually having a plot is a massive problem.
I’m not sure how you get from “it’s setting up for DA3” to “it has no plot and demonstrates contempt for your customers.”
I haven’t finished the game (just in Act 2) but it certainly seems to have some kind of plot going on. The impression I have so far of the Flemeth/Morrigan story is that they’re hinting at it in DA2; resolution, if any, would be a game in and of itself.
So, there’s no story, just vignettes which stop and start, and drops all kinds of plot elements. This is a half-finished game.
Therefore, I don’t give a shit what it’s supposedly “setting up.” I want to buy a complete game, not a lead-in for another game which doesn’t exist. Amazingly, I expect somethign rmoe than a random collection of unrelated cut-n-pasted battle stages. If I want that, I already have Vindictus.
Yes, BioWare can make millions of dollars off of its intellectual properly even if they only half-finish a game.
Although I agree with the fact that the game was half-finished (repeating dungeon layouts were the worst offender in my eyes), doing 54k Assassinate crits with my rogue and one-shotting ogres was a lot of fun.
[spoiler]The worst part about Nightmare difficulty was when NPCs killed me with fireballs. The only times my rogue was incapacitated in the last fight against Meredith and those statues were due to Bethany nuking the boss/mobs without any way for me to know, unless I spam paused, and instantly knocking me out. It was really irritating.
Poor planning to make half a game. And killing Orsino when I sided with the mages was ridiculous. I seriously thought they would have Orsino be the end boss for siding with the Templars, not some ridiculous Abomination fight that was incredibly easy and involved no Templar threat whatsoever. Oh, one-shotting Fenris was also enjoyable. Whiny fuck that he is.
I really wish I had waited for it to go on sale instead of blowing my dwindling funds on this game.[/spoiler]
The best thing about this game is that it inspired me to go back and replay Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins (still haven’t bought Awakening, which is next on my list). Vanguards with Claymores are ridiculously fun to play.
Ok, a little late to the party, but I finally beat it.
Total play time: 67 Hours. Yes, I did just about every quest I could get my hands on. But I only read about 40% of all of the Codex entries.
The good:
The voice acting and story telling were exemplary. Something that I hope they keep doing with all of their RPG’s. The characters were all interesting, even if I liked some more than others, they always felt real, multi-dimensional.
Combat was a lot fun, crafting was much improved, abilities were numerous and useful.
The Bad:
While the story telling was great, the actual plot… was there a plot? Oh yes, I suppose there was. And it was a real let down. Meandered pointlessly, ponderously, to an ending that ultimately resolved nothing.
While the combat was fun, something about the pacing was off. Combined with the endless waves of mobs, it just wasn’t as good overall as DA:O’s combat. With DA:O I had a lot of fun playing in nightmare mode. WIth DA2 Nightmare was a pain because of poor camera control, poor AI, and just the terrible length of every encounter - combat would just start to drag after a bit.
If they fixed the pacing and did away with the waves, except perhaps occasionally, when it makes sense to have them, then we’d be good.
I have a sneaky suspicion the waves were mostly about the consoles. In DA:O they used waves on the console game because they couldn’t handle the larger number of enemies that the PC version used.
The item lockouts between acts blew goats.
It was also very hard to cultivate friendships/rivalries. It occasionally devolved into a silly back and forth which ended up costing me a companion.
The Ugly:
The area copy paste was down right embarrassing. Inexcusable for a company like Bioware, really. I don’t know what they were thinking. If I was CEO I would have said: HELL NO! Take some more time and create more maps you fools!
I’m pretty much in agreement with everyone else on the ending and the ultimate fate of what I thought was the best choice (siding with the mages) being robbed of all meaning.
The final fight was pretty cool though.
I would have liked to have seen more on what happened to my character and my companions afterward 
I’ve gotta ask – how on earth did you spend 67 hours on that thing?
I think I said earlier I spent less than 40 (I think it was around 36 hrs, IIRC) and I did every quest available to me. The only thing I know I missed was anything involving Nathaniel, because he never showed up in my game.
Nathanial didn’t show up in my game either. What difficulty did you play on? I started on nightmare and switched to hard about 20% in.
Ah, that must be it – I flipped between Normal and Casual.
BTW, I agree pretty much completely with this review.
I’m about halfway through at this point (about 20 hours in). On just about all aspects, it is much improved over DA 1. What some find rambling and unfocused in the plot, I find much more believable and enjoyable and seems to build a much more credible environment. It feels like the George RR Martin response to Harry Potter in comparison.
DA1 recycled yet again the model of the cookie-cutter 4 chapters that you can visit in any order, yet are completely thematically and functionally divorced from each other. DA2’s characters, races, and factions felt like they were supporting each other, instead of just DA1’s MadLib plot development. “The Dalish have run afoul of the darkspawn and Alistair is worried about the Chantry having a new threat from the Fade…”
And a huge thank-you to allowing us access to a full tactics menu from the beginning, instead of wasting skill points “earning” tactic slots.
The only criticisms I have so far are the mentioned lazy map-recycling, and the loss of armor inventory for the side characters. Yeah, playing “dolls” with my character outfits is my secret RPG pleasure, what are you gonna do about it?
I’m about half way through my second play through; first I played as a dual weapon rogue, now as a two-handed warrior. I played the first play through on casual, and Nathanial showed up. It is either in the second or the third act, but you meet Nathanial’s sister in the “gallows” area. She is basically just standing there with an exclamation point over her head. You ask her what is wrong, and she is missing her brother who travelled to the deep roads. I think it is the only time you get access back to the deep roads after your initial expedition. You rescue him from an attack. Then he leaves. It is a fairly unremarkable side quest.
I liked the fighting much better (I play on a console), and am a bit of a button masher. Beyond setting my companions’ tactics, I never micromanaged battles much, other than to reposition folks or have them take potions. So I like the fighting a lot better.
Plus, I don’t feel like I have to be a rogue. In DA:O, I felt like I had to be a rogue to get loot… and I hated Leliana. So I didn’t want her around much. But I really like Varric, and there are FAR fewer chests and doors to be opened. Actually lockpicking seems very undervalued in DA2.
BUT: I like RPG’s because I like the relationship aspect, and the romance, and dressing/kitting up my companions and weapons. And that your choices actually have a huge impact on the game. That aspect seemed really lacking. LAME!!! And Anders wasn’t nearly as attractive in DA2, in looks or personality. Damn Justice done f’ed him up!
I think the lack of epic-ness has more to do with how small the game universe was, rather than having a less-then cohesive plot. Caridan’s Cross in DA:O was more complex than almost all of Kirkwall. WTF?
All in all, I will play it and enjoy it. But I will probably only play through 3 times (rogue, warrior and mage), as opposed to my 15+ playthroughs of DA:O and Awakenings.
I popped my RPG cherry on Fable II and III, and simply fell in love with DA:O+Awakenings… I just hope I didn’t blow my wad there. 
A friend of mine lent me Baldur’s Gate II for my PC. I’ve never played a PC game before other than Myst. What am I in for?
I don’t think you’ll like it. It’s a LOT different than Dragon Age, Fable, Oblivion, etc.
It depends - I love Baldur’s Gate 2 and still play it today, but that’s at least partially because I started playing it when it was the new hot game, and partially because I was a D&D player.
It has relationships and decent NPC interaction, though not quite as good as Bioware’s games these days.
If you like fantasy RPGs/D&D but think BG2 is too dated, try Neverwinter Nights (1), including its expansions. Otherwise Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (1) and Mass Effect (1 & 2) if you can handle sci-fi and shooting guns, but want a Dragon Age-like experience, also from Bioware.
“Go for the eyes, Boo!”
In Knights of the Old Republic, you also get to hit things with swords/knives/ooh spoiler lightsabers a lot.
Oh, good point, you do get sword access pretty early. I was thinking about starter pistols and how a player might get annoyed with shooting stuff until Big Stuff Happens.
You also get the Wookie companion pretty early on, as I recall, so yet more ripping-off-of-arms (*) goodness right there from the start.
*Disclaimer: you don’t actually get to rip anyone’s arms off
Thanks guys! I am going to try Knights of the Old Republic (and I think we already have it). My husband just finished playing ME 1&2. It looked interesting, but I suck at shooting. And shooting seems pretty primary in ME 1&2.
I’m not a shooter fan either, but you can always go for the lowest difficulty level and turn on their “aim assist” feature; that helps a ton. Playing a biotic is kind of spell-caster-y as well.