A better console experience than the first Dragon Age with tons of content.

I am curious to see what the GB community thinks of this game. If you haven't played it, please dont vote... Like that will happen, but anyways, it seems this game got a lot of shitstorm on the Bio community. What do you all guys here think?

D. 
 
I hope they don't make another game like this, but I do hope they take all the good parts and put them to good use in ME3/DA3. 
Too much silly sidequests happening, have no clue what I'm doing and for who or why. But hey stabbing fools is still fun so far.

It runs better and it looks better, but I can't say I'm having as much fun as I did in Origins. Then again I'm only 10 hours in so it could get better, but I'm really confused right now as to what is happening in the story...

I think it's fine.

It suffers from limited scope in terms of the setting of the game, but the vast scope in terms of how much time passes was a good way to design the story.  The characters were more interesting this time around, far better than the generic ones from DA:O, and the combat is flashier, which makes it easier for me to bare.  (Not a jab against DAII's combat.  DA:O combat was pretty dull for me and making things flashier and faster was a small help.)
 
The biggest problem remains that the game has the ME1 syndrome of having the exact same set of layouts for all the dungeons you traverse.  While some can be contrived away by being the exact same areas you are exploring, just in different years, the fact that the Bartrand mansion, the Fenris mansion, and the Blooming Rose all have the exact same layout is inexcusable.  And that's just one example.  This one thing caused my enjoyment of the game to suffer more than anything else.

User review forthcoming.

Other than the story lacking forcus in chapter 1 and the lack of a command queue, I thinks it's great. 4 stars. Minus 1 star for dated tech, as well as the other points I mentioned. Far from being done with it though - depending if there's gonna be a climax finale like ME2's suicide mission or ME1's reaper attack, I might upgrade to 5 stars.
 
I usually end up doing 2-3 playthroughs over the span of 2-3 years. At least that's how it was for Baldur's Gate 2 and Mass Effect 1 & 2, as well as Dragon Age : Origins.

Feels like a cash-in.

I started doing every quest I could before I earn 50 gold to go into the Deep Roads - that was like 25 hours ago and I still haven't gone.  The content is there but the pacing is weird and I can't be sure if it's the game or me doing it to myself, but I'm just now close to 50 gold.  The dungeon repetition is awful.
 
I'm still in the first year, and everything could change after time moves forward but even if It did - I don't think I would want to replay what's happened so far.
 
And I hate how instead of spawning all of the enemies at once, they spawn them in waves - which makes stuff like placing your team pointless.  Instead of just fighting like 5 tough enemies you end up fighting 20 really weak enemies that come from every direction and it just feels dumb.  Like, they are trying to make you feel strong but instead the combat sometimes feels impotent.
 
What's good is great, what's bad is terrible.  I don't know 3 I guess?

after 20 hours it's a solid 4 out of 5.

I was pissed off by a number of things for the first few hours but now the game is starting to grow on me. 
No, it's not even close to the first Dragon Age in terms of depth and content, but the experience it does offer is really good. 
 
I was half expecting way worse than this.

I had a great time, and a lot of the changes made seemed to actually fit me better than DA:O. It goes by faster for sure, but that's kinda why I liked it. Looking forward to playthrough 2.

" @Seppli:  Maybe I'll try nightmare later and see if it feels better.  I've been on hard so far. "

While I don't think it is a "perfect" game, I feel it is better than a 4.  So I voted 5.  I just beat it.
 
Time to start my rogue and be evil!

4/5 stars. I'm only 8 hours in but I'm really enjoying it. It's no Mass Effect 2, but it's on par with Origins for me. Not sure where all the hate is coming from. 

3 out of 5 
 
It has all the hallmarks of a rushed title, egregious misuse of the copy and paste function, and a unsatisfying story that ends with a cliffhanger when it actually looks like it will finally get interesting.

 im at the 20 hour mark now and i really dont want to go to sleep. However, its still somewhat of a strech at times (not all side missions are boring, but the ones that are will really break the flow of the game) but origins had flaws too. Also yo... that serial killer-mission? lets just say im a wizard...  
anyways it tells a great story (but on a smaller scale than origins) , has combat that gets more fun the longer you play it , has great and believable characters, but lacks variety environmentwise. 4/5

3 stars isn't mediocre. Mediocre means below average and 3 stars is above average. I wanna vote 3 stars but your dumb wordage prevents it. At the end of the day, as super dumb as the dungeon copypasting is, only exceeded in dumbness but the excuses people come up with for it, you acclimate to that. And by acclimate, I mean you stop doing sidequests. I feel bad for people enabling this shit because they're telling Bioware "no, I don't want the attention to detail you showed in DAO and ME2, I want you to cut corners". At the end of the day, whatever internet fight you think you're winning is really just validating Bioware/EA's hubris. And you can blame EA all you want, but Blizzard doesn't have this problem with excluded disc content sold as DLC and rehashing levels now do they? And they're owned by bigger dicks.
 
 My main thing right now I think is not being able to quickly flip the entire team between 2 or more sets of tactics. I have a great setup for large groups of enemies and another setup that works on bosses, but they're completely different and they suck at doing the opposing thing. I'd love to have 2+ custom tactic sets per person and be able to group  those sets of tactics together and set that group(call it a formation, say) to a hotkey, then set another group of tactics to a different hotkey. So when I'm fighting a dragon that takes a break to let its 30 kids kill you, I can just switch from my 'boss' tactic group to the other group. Gambits have a lot of potential and hopefully someone over there can see how much more can be done. But yeah, Bioware, fire the fool who decided map recycling was a good idea. And don't use this opportunity to wall yourself up until all you hear are yes men or you'll be as clueless and detached as Square Enix. Which is a bummer, cus if they listened to people they'd know FF12 was really on to something and they'd stop looking at 1998 and pop singers for inspiration.  
So yeah. Tactics fun. Characters have moments, Anders is whiny, the fade segment is a highlight instead of a lowlight this time (if the right people are brought in), elves look goofy, qunari look better, you let me throw Isabella under the bus (thank god), 3 star.

how the fuck is anyone already done with it? unless you just did main quest stuff, but you probably missed out on fighting weird rock spiders, haunted houses, huge dragons, and dream worlds....because all that was side stuff in my Journal....

I want to click on a number to see the results of the poll, but I haven't played the game. I wish there was a "I haven't played it" option so I could see what the results are. I guess I'll just read your comments instead...

I'm giving it three puppies!
 
  

1 star - A big disappointment and overall a shitty game

2.3% 
  
2 star - While having a few good moments, it's still a bad game

3.4%  
 
3 star - A mediocre experience with it's ups and downs. An OK game  
23.0% 
  
4 star - A great game with Bioware quality, but still missing some

51.7% 
  
5 star - A perfect game i can play for days, weeks, months or maybe years. I love it! 
19,5%

 
______________________________________________ 
 
So far :)

Not voting on the poll because I don't agree with the descriptions paired with the rating.

Haven't finished but I've put in a solid 17 or so hours, trying to do everything I can. Game is enjoyable, but I've encountered a few annoying glitches and the game is showing that it was rushed out the door. It almost feels like I'm trying to play the first Assassin's Creed after playing AC2.

That being said there are a handful of things that I hope the Mass Effect team takes notice of, particularly the changes in the conversation wheel.

" how the fuck is anyone already done with it? unless you just did main quest stuff, but you probably missed out on fighting weird rock spiders, haunted houses, huge dragons, and dream worlds....because all that was side stuff in my Journal.... "

4 stars. It's not for mechanical reasons, though the copy/paste dungeons don't help that cause. It's for the weird issues of tone (basically, I think that in some ways they almost go out of their way to trivialize the events of DA:O by setting it somewhere away from the conclusion in that story and throwing in a few random cameos and callbacks from your imported save file) and the way the story ends with a fairly abrupt cliffhanger right as it's starts getting very interesting. I think the cast of characters is roughly on par with that of Mass Effect 2, and I think it's a better playing game, at least on consoles. I still need to collect my thoughts. Maybe I'll write a user review.

I finished it (I took a week off work, played non-stop - great little vacation).  
 
I'd go with the 5 star option. Having completed it, I'm ready to jump back in for a second playthrough. I thought the story was fantastic and I really enjoyed the characters. I loved the combat also. Yeah, 5 stars.

3/5 stars for me. Recycling dungeons is really lazy. Also, they are leaving too many important characters out of these main games (Flemmeth, Morrigan etc.)  What are they going to do? Elaborate on their stories in the cartoon or the books?

3/5

5 
 
I'm easy to please though. I think it's better then Origins story wise, characters are on the same level if not higher, and the combat is better (On consoles, haven't played the pc version of 2). Only real issue is the copy and pasted dungeons but those don't bother me nearly as much as others apparently. 

14 hours, not sure how far into the game I am but so far I'd give it 4/5. Combat is lots of fun, story is interesting in that I'm not really sure what is going on but all the side quests and companion quests are much improved from Origins.  
 
Companions are a bit...crap to be honest, only Varric has any personality which is sad because Anders was great in Awakening but now he's turned into a bit of a whiny bitch. 

Very good.

4 stars.  I had a ton of fun playing them game and was totally planning on running through again as a mage right up until the very end, which is bullshit.  Overall, outside of dungeon recycling and the fact that sq. footage-wise the game feels small to me, I think it made a lot of improvements over DAO. However, at the end of DAO you kill a dragon,  The end of 2 seems like an advertisement saying "DLC is on the way kids."

4, it's a great game.

" It runs better and it looks better, but I can't say I'm having as much fun as I did in Origins. Then again I'm only 10 hours in so it could get better, but I'm really confused right now as to what is happening in the story... "

@Enigma777 said:

" It runs better and it looks better, but I can't say I'm having as much fun as I did in Origins. Then again I'm only 10 hours in so it could get better, but I'm really confused right now as to what is happening in the story... "

I just wanted to discuss this comment for a moment. I played an entire game from start to finish today in the time that you have spent waiting for DA2 to get fun. I guess I can see how that could eventually lead to a more fulfilling experience in the end, but seriously...10 freaking hours?
 
RPGs don't seem to obey the rules of all other forms of entertainment ever. *shrug* Different strokes as they say...

ONE STAR. THEY TOOK MY BETHANY. THEY JUST TOOK HER *sniff*

so far my experience with dragon age 2 is it's release has made me go back and want to finish origins. 
 
so 4/5 before even booting it up

The beginning of the game I felt it was going down a 2-3 star experience, but now that i'm in 12 hours it feels like a 4 star game. It's no origins, but that shouldn't prevent someone from experiencing it.

" ONE STAR. THEY TOOK MY BETHANY. THEY JUST TOOK HER *sniff* "

" @rjayb89 said:

" ONE STAR. THEY TOOK MY BETHANY. THEY JUST TOOK HER *sniff* "

God I know.  I would much rather have her for the whole game. "

I think I'm near the end (about 35 hours in) and I am loving it. While there are certainly flaws, just like any game, I would give it 5 stars. I'm not even done my first play through and I already can't wait to start my second to find out how the story varies depending on the choices you make.

4 
 
It's an entirely different feeling game than the first. That is growing on me though. I just miss the more interesting companions from the first game, especially Morrigan.

" 4  It's an entirely different feeling game than the first. That is growing on me though. I just miss the more interesting companions from the first game, especially Morrigan. "

I'm quite happy giving it a 4/5  I'm 12 hours in (playing on PC), and as per usual, the game has just received a ton of unwarranted hate from all the overly self entitled gamers out there who think this is their game or some shit and that Bioware wasn't allowed to make any changes.
 
My only real complaint?  I wouldn't so much mind the copy/pasted dungeons if they would just have removed the blocked off parts of the levels from the minimap.  It's annoying running one direction, only to find out that there's a dead end, even though it shows the rest of the level on the minimap.