Lol you guise. Here's the facts:
 
Dialogue wheel is fine, I don't care. However, what I DO CARE ABOUT IS THE RETARDED PARAPHRASING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The paraphrasing is shitty and dosen't always convey what Hawke will say, which Bioware realized otherwise we woulden't have these retarded icons. Mass Effect didn't need them, so obviously a retarded monkey was hired to develop DA2's dialogue.

Short development time. Still a really good game though, it blows my mind that there is such a ridiculous backlash to it. People must be looking back on Origins with some serious rose-tinted glasses, because that game was not that much better, namely because it was tedious as hell in many ways and the story wasn't much more than generic high fantasy "you're the one hero, now go unite everyone under one banner to fight the big bad guy."

" Short development time. Still a really good game though, it blows my mind that there is such a ridiculous backlash to it. People must be looking back on Origins with some serious rose-tinted glasses, because that game was not that much better, namely because it was tedious as hell in many ways and the story wasn't much more than generic high fantasy "you're the one hero, now go unite everyone under one banner to fight the big bad guy." "

For me, it's quite amazing to see how they made such a good quality game in such a short space of time, if it only took them one year! Props to them. It shows that the formula works well and you can slap together a half decent game if you try really hard. 
 
But the real problem is that they reused all environments and weren't trying to diversify enough. I am about 30 hours in and I can not stand going back to the same places over and over and over and over again, doing different 'quests' - it feels monotonous and i certainly as hell DON'T want to replay, I can't wait till I'm finished. Maybe I might want to play as another class, but the fact that I was stuck with nearly the same combination of companions all the way through, will discourage me because it'll be the same when I play it again, I'll want MORE companions. I think the 3 companion limit is a bit old, should have the ability to use 2 more, which would be totally awesome. They barely managed to wrap around some sort of idea as to -why- you can only have three companions! 
 
The quest system wasn't as good as in ME2 for example, because I would FINISH a quest, then I'd speak to the same dude in a second, and it would be like a =huge= space of time went by since the last time I spoke with him/her and they'd be like "ooh heeeey so good to see you i've been looking everywhere!" and I'm thinking to myself "Sir, i just spoke to you a minute ago, idiot!". Bits like that tick me off.

things better than DA1  
. sarcastic lady Hawke. best. thing. ever. better than space bitch femShep.
. the character quest (especially Aveline) are awesome.  
. inventory management 
. hot mid-40s lady antagonist (Meredith) / Hawke's mom 
. finally broke the Bioware's cliche RPG  "Go to ZONE#1,2,3,4 IN ANY ORDER"  
. crafting/speech/tactic slots skills are gone. this time of 'dumbing down" i welcome! 
. a lot of BG2 reference 
. party character aesthetics. Sure you can't change their armor, at least their looks are consistent. no more convervative robe morrigan and stripper robes wynn
 . instant sex-able Zevran
 
things worse than DA1 
. length. granted most of DA1 time was wasted on inventory management/recovery from combat and going reaaally long tedious quests (Deep Road....) 
. no Alistair. all the male characters sucks.    


 
Can't wait for the DLC after the end game.. 
or bioware completely wrote themself into a corner like DA1....

 I like it, some people knock it because it's too linear but in my opinion Origins was the same way after the first 20-30 minutes. And because the plot is more focused the characters have a deeper story.

If you choose a female character you have smaller boobs than everyone else.

What I think would've made the time-skips better would be if your character and your companions aged. Nothing aggressive like Benjamin Button, but say by the time Act 3 rolls around maybe your hair starts getting a lighter colour, or more wrinkles start appearing on your face. It would've done much to give the player a sense of time passing. That, and of course actually having the city change in some instances. A city doesn't change drastically over 10 years, but there are subtle changes such as one neighbourhood deteriorates and another gets a fresh coat of paint. Honestly more little touches like that would've went a long way to making you feel like time was marching on.

Plenty of games do consequences better than Bioware for people who care about that stuff. 

As a standalone game, actually quite good. As a sequel to Origins, deeply flawed and disappointing. 
 
Also, why can't I choose that my male Hawke isn't gay? I don't mean gay as fag, but gay as homosexual, like Will from Will and Grace, strong homosexual man. I tried everything, played him tough, sarcastic, even nice, romanced Merril even, but he was still gay.

" Also, why can't I choose that my male Hawke isn't gay? I don't mean gay as fag, but gay as homosexual, like Will from Will and Grace, strong homosexual man. I tried everything, played him tough, sarcastic, even nice, romanced Merril even, but he was still gay. "

@StarvingGamer 
@Dookysharpgun 
 
Might be the voice actor or maybe animations while he talks. I played the default model and he does look like a model so that probably contributed too. Who knows, maybe it's just me.