I had high, high hopes for this game. I adored the first game and pre-ordered this game months before the release date. The initial trailers blew me away, and rarely have I anticipated a game more. Unfortunately, this made the letdown all the more frustrating. DA2 is not a bad game, but neither is it nearly as good as its predecessor. Furthermore, after the epic and Grandiose scale of the first game, this game seemed to add little to the overall scope of the world of Dragon Age. The Graphics have seen a wonderful improvement. The characters are still great and you can delve into each character's current and past life. Overall, the game is highly polished and feels smooth. The tactical battle system feels a bit faster, but basically the same.
With that said, I have some major gripes with DA2. First, you don't have control over your party members armor. This drives me nuts, and I find this change from the first game inexplicable. Second, and much more confusing is that the world is significantly smaller than Origins. In Origins, you explored a continent filled with castles, caves, mountains, villages, and cities and tunnels under the Earth. The world was diverse and rich with life and history. In DA2, the entire game is in the city of Kirkwall and a few surrounding areas. Third, and the most irritating, is that the game designers reuse the same areas over and over and over. When I found myself in the brothel and then later a noble's house, and they had exactly the same rooms with the same layout, it made me want to punch the game. Not to mention, that you enter 15 different caves, and each cave is simply the same set piece being reused constantly. On top of that, you find yourself running around the same parts of Kirkwall over and over and over and over and over. Thank God that the quests have quite a bit of variety, but at the same time, I found myself wanting a centralized interested story to keep the game moving. Hawke is a fun character, and his/her voice acting is terrific, but again the game finds itself wanting in the plot department. Also, all of the supporting characters are well-developed and easy to care about.
Overall, the game is very well-made. Most of its faults come from comparing it to the first, which again, was a much better game. I expected this game to be an 11/10, but sadly it falls somewhere closer to an 8/10. I will continue to play Dragon Age games, but unfortunately this game put a damper on that desire.
