I have recently played through Dragon Age 2 twice (once on normal and once on hard.) and I have collected my thoughts and I have some issues with it.  And I figured why not share it with you guys like every other opinionated moron on the internet.

 But as my uncle would always say focus on the positives so I will atleast start of by saying even though I set out basically trying to hate the combat, I ended up really enjoying the combat, yes it is faster paced and more actiony but that lends itself to more creative tactics and relies more on your reflexes instead of just your patience and how methodical you want to go forward. 
 
The ui is also streamlined even though I absolutely hate the word "streamline" as it is usually analogous to "we are lazy and just took out a feature cause it would be to much of a bother to make this work more efficiently." but everything that is taken out of the ui from dragon age origins was completely superflous and useless, and it just looks better, so good on bioware. 
 
Where the game really falls short (for me anyway) is the story and the character which really is a shock considering that is the opposite of what I would expect of this game cause it's Bioware, they make good stories and awesome memorable characters that's their legacy.  But they completely dropped the ball here, either the characters are so god damn bland that you have trouble even remembering their names because of their blandness or they are just either complete dicks or epically stupid and/or annoying. 
 
 Like Merrill who is annoying in just about every single imaginable way, not only is her quest to rebuild that fucking mirror epically dumb and nonsensical (why do you want to open a portal to hell again?, oh because you want to "restore your tribes old glory". Got it... Wait what?) but her accent is also unbearable. Fenris is the product of someone watching too much Bleach or Dragonball Z cause he looks like stepped right out of some anime with his outrageous hair and his extremely cringeworthy angsty backstory, and I simply cannot take a character that looks as dumb as he does seriously.  Oh and Carver whom deserves to be curbstomped over and over and over again for being a complete fucking asshole. 
 
Rest of the characters are just blandsville, your sister Bethany I cannot think of anything to describe her as (monotone maybe?), the guardswoman I cannot really describe her personality or anything about her except maybe "stern?" oh and Isabella whom will give you about 10 different STD's if you as much as glance in here general direction. 
 
But the real abomination for me is not the boring or just downright terrible characters its the final act of the story which basically comes down to a question of "are you pro genocide or not?"