I really, really enjoyed it. I don't know why I'm having such a different reaction than everyone else I know! Everyone else thinks it sucked, or just wasn't as good as the first.
Personally, I thought it was better than the first one, and for no particular reason. It was buggy as hell, but I'll be damned if I didn't have a hell of amount of fun playing it.
Also: Merrill is Love. <3
Alright - I'll give it that on the first play through the story line was entertaining, the advancement to the combat system made it more interactive which was enjoyable and having an anders/justice combination was interesting.
But beyond that - it failed in comparison to the first one. There was way less variation. Only one race, only two options of armaments per class, one new prestige class per class, only main character gets to equip different armor and the like. But all that I could over look because the first play through was entertaining. I got to the end and decided to try the evil way instead of the good.
Now - I loved DA 1 because each choice made comes back later in the game and damn near the whole style of the game can be changed by which paths you choose to take when, what characters are with you at the time and so on and so forth.
My second play through, first being all good - helping the mages, blah blah, there was absolutely no changes in the story line for going evil as evil could be. Except that my followers got different bonuses and there was a slight variation of where you meet alistair. But no different quests for being bad, no big change in the responses you get from NPCs or flow of the story.
First play through - it was fun, entertaining and playable. Still haven't beat it but I'm right there and I probably will. But I pre-ordered it, waiting patiently for it and dropped money on it expecting it to be more like the first where it had massive replay value. Guess that is where I am disappointed in the game is that it lack any form of replay value except seeing what the other classes can do.
