Dragon Age 2 Demo Impressions?

For starters, I'm playing on Xbox 360. 
 
It is better than I expected, but the who thing stinks of Mass Effect.  I love Mass Effect, but I don't want Dragon Age to be Mass effect.  The conversation wheel, right down the the investigate tab, is straight from ME.  The pause menu, which is unfortunately different than DAO, is exactly like the pause menu of ME.  Also, it really irks me that the inventory is locked in the game.  You let me pick up different things, let me equip some stuff just to see how it is.  I still don't know if I like the art style either.  Combined with the faster paced action, the game has a kind of anime feel, which I don't really like.  And hopefully, it is just the demo, but transitions are quite jarring from cutscene to cutscene.  I had more fun than I expected, but we'll see when the final game comes out.  I didn't like DAO for the first hour or so, so maybe this is the same thing; just needing time to get used to it.

Downloaded the 360 demo, but haven't tried it yet. Intend to try both the 360 and PC version to make final judgement. 
 
and for reference's sake, Dragon Age was my GOTY 2009 so.. I am definitely a Dragon Age fan

Still waiting on the PC demo. It's not on Steam yet, and doesn't appear to be available on the Dragon Age website yet. I want to try the 360 demo for the sake of comparison, but not until after I've tried the PC version.

I really enjoyed the 360 demo. The gameplay is fast and very action-y. Still, it felt like Dragon Age.   
 
I'm still waiting for the PC demo to be released (40min!), as my playthrough of Origins, Awakening, and all the DLC are on PC. As far as the 360 version though, I'd give it a recommend. 

i loved it but some times playing as a mage your animation stutters and goes into slow motion and nothing happens for a few seconds, whatever spell you were casting doesnt come out, hopefully thats just the demo though, looking forward to the full game, i swear i have like 6 offers already redeemed and ready to go the day this comes out.

I really liked the demo. I wish it was easier to have complete control of my party but thats just a limitation of the xbox controller. One the PC demo is out all will be well. Still the console version is surprisingly good and I would easily recommended it to anyone who wants to play it but can't run the PC version. 
 
I now find myself in a pickle. Original I planned on playing mage since in Origins they were the best. Now after playing the demo I'm not sure which class to choose. Bioware really improved the warrior and rogue classes.

I came away mostly unimpressed with the demo, I thought that the fact that you had to keep mashing the A button to attack didn't really add anything to the combat, and there wasn't anyway to go back to default auto-attack. 
I guess that won't be a problem in the PC version, though, so that's good. 
 
I also didn't feel like there was enough emotion when the thing that was supposed to be sad, but wasn't really because of the characters, happened. But the sad music was playing so I guess people were supposed to be sad. 
In general I felt the voice-acting wasn't as good as DA:O, but hopefully I was just not in the mood when I played through it, and it will feel better in the full game. 
 
Now I'm just waiting for the PC demo... Why can't you follow swedish time, Bioware!? It's been the 22nd for 18 hours already!

Should have put this in the Dragon Age 2 forum.... 
 
Anyways, I'm in love with the new interface redesign. It's so much better! 
 
Voice acting aint that hot though...

" I came away mostly unimpressed with the demo, I thought that the fact that you had to keep mashing the A button to attack didn't really add anything to the combat, and there wasn't anyway to go back to default auto-attack.

I wish I could download the demo but the servers are being hit too much so I have to wait. Not the worst thing I guess.

I can't wait to get out of work and check it out.

This is sounding to be a pretty terrible demo. No hawke facial customiser, no option to set the attack to auto (on consoles), no use of looted armour allowed and apparent lag during attacking animations as well? 

I just finished the demo and I really enjoyed it. I was confused during the intro, but apparently Varric has a knack for exaggerating and the darkspawn exploding and Bethany's huge chest are a result of that. Kind of funny plot device really.

Oh, also, the part when you get to Kirkwell and are swiftly advanced through story until you're fighting along side the pirate lady was horribly rushed and unintelligible.  Hopefully that was just for the demo, and that's not how the actual section plays out

I like it. I have no reserve about the game now and should like the real one a whole lot. All 3 classes seem fun to play and for the 1st time I think I may play a mage instead of a warrior.  
 
Edit: One thing that really sucks is not being able to loot during combat like in Origins. I guess it makes sense but I couldn't pick up potions I needed because I was in a fight.

I loved the demo, the combat really did feel like a faster dragon age 1 (although the fact that it took about 10 hits with a warrior to kill a darkspawn grunt started to get annoying). I played through as a male warrior and im now depressed because Im intending to play through the full game as a female mage..... which means that Bethany will die (who i thought was really well voiced acted) - I don't give a flying crumpet about the brother.

Combat is great (360 version). Played a mage as that was the one class I couldn't really get into in Origins, and it feels a lot more fast paced and 'actiony', which basically translates as a good time in my house. Could see it pissing off PC dudes, but it's different on there so I've heard. There's a bit of an ablilitease at the start  which shows you what high level combat is like which is pretty useful, your level one dude with mindblast doesn't demonstrate this at all well until you get a couple more spells. The demo is super combat focused mind, there's some dialogue tree bits, some levelling up (which looks and feels a lot cleaner, but still offers a lot of customisation) and not much else, no inventory, no bartering and no character appearance customisation. One big difference is  that the cinematography is a lot more accomplished in the talky bits, and the character designs are so much more improved it's not even funny. Flemeth's appearance and subsequent dialogue sequence seems to be a pretty solid representation of what they're now doing in that game vis a vis storyline bits. Also good to see Kate Mulgrew is still getting work.

You are right about it being too much Mass Effect. It should be it's own thing. 
 
@Abyssfull: I noticed no lag during animations and I played a mage a few times. I did not see what he said.     
 
 
Also OP, there is much more to getting to Kirkwal and the point of fighting with Isabella. There was a video someone posted not too long ago of a guy playing though that part that shows more. It was just rushed for the sake of the demo.

" Combat is great (360 version). Played a mage as that was the one class I couldn't really get into in Origins, and it feels a lot more fast paced and 'actiony', which basically translates as a good time in my house. Could see it pissing off PC dudes, but it's different on there so I've heard.   

I give the demo 4 and a half puppies. Sorry puppy... *chop*

I just got done with the PC demo and I thought it was pretty cool. They didn't ruin everything in favor of consolization like I thought. It also ran great... I have a i7 @ 4 Ghz and SLI Geforce 470's so everything runs great for me.

I literally just got done playing it on the PC less then a minute ago, and I'm split 50/50 on the game right now.  I played as a Mage lady Shepard.
 

Hated 

• My biggest problem with this game is the combat animations. I absolutely fucking despise them, to the point that I think it may hurt the game for me in the long run. I don't want characters doing backflips, teleporting and waving weapons around like it was Devil May Cry or God of War. I loved the first games combat animations because they all felt real and as if they had a good weight to them, but in this game it all just looks so comical and over the top. It feels like they sat a 12 year old down in a room and asked him what he thought looked cool then ran out and did that.
• I hope there is a lot more skill trees you unlock in the main game, because from what I saw in the demo I do not like how they dumbed it all down. There didn't look to be as much variety to choose from. If the 4-6 they showed is all we get to choose from I will be very disappointed.
• The two handed swords are comically large. They are like 12 feet long.
• Can't really say anything until I get the full game, but I don't like the way the story looks like it's headed in.
• So far none of the characters I saw in the game did anything for me. They all just seem to be bland. Of course it's just a demo, so I will wait until I play the full game to say anything. 
• It was probably because I speced my mage as a healer, but the combat was really boring. All I could do for 90% of the demo was right click a guy and watch as my character kept doing the same stupid looping attack animation over and over again.
• Again, it was probably because of how I speced my character, but it took way too much time to kill even the most basic guy.
• Really dislike the new look of the Darkspawn. I hope they give a reason why they look different in this game.
• Not a fan of so much of the story being told in those 2D flash drawings. I hope they just used so much of it because it was the demo, but if they use that to tell a ton of the story in the real game I will be very disappointed.

• Some of the animations during cutscenes are still rather wooden, but it's a notch better then the original.
• Not sure how I feel about the voice acting yet. It didn't feel bad, but it didn't blow me away ether.
• Sadly they didn't let us equip any items, so I don't know how that will work, but I heard somewhere that they really limited the equipment in this game in some way. I really hope this is not the case, because one of the main things that bugged me about the first one was how all the armour looked so much like one another.
• The rest of the game. 

The dialogue wheel and the new pause menu make perfect sense for consoles: a circular shape makes it easy to navigate with a joystick.

Played it on the PC. I was a little concerned about combat being too restrictive but it's still very much in line with the tactical combat of DA Origins. Changed  a bit, sure but it's for the most part the same. 
 
It was a lot of fun but I got to say I'm pretty disappointed at the juvenile over sexualization of the women. It taints the game with an air of pandering. I guess it was necessary to the game that the main character's mother had a huge rack. 

Played the PS3 demo.  Like the characters, hate the incessant button mashing, felt like the graphics were on par with the previous DA, but not up to modern standards.  Music was good.  Demo tells me that I should definitely wait for a price drop if its indicative of the full-product.  No way I'm paying $60 unless reviews concur that this is game of the year material.

" This is sounding to be a pretty terrible demo. No hawke facial customiser, no option to set the attack to auto (on consoles), no use of looted armour allowed and apparent lag during attacking animations as well?  "