Not to be confused with the masterful PC games, but a solid contender to Diablo's throne.
This is a game best experienced with a friend. It can be played cooperatively from start to finish, and a team of two is much more readily equipped for dealing with harsh situations, as well as making death less likely through the system of respawning near save points. This is not to say the game becomes easy. I have a suspicion that the difficulty level of the foes is raised in two player, and some encounters killed myself and my friend more than once before we figured out how to handle them. My one complaint is that, for reasons I don't entirely comprehend, the two characters are given separate pools of gold and no way to share it between them. Admittedly, you *can* share items, but it's occasionally irritating.
The graphics are still the best I've seen in an action RPG. Lovely spell effects, lighting, rippling water, corpses and wreckage left everywhere after large battles.
The sound is adequate. Voice acting for the NPCs is actually surprisingly good, but your own characters are given only a few extremely repetitive phrases for any given situation, and their dialogue is not voiced.
Character development is loosely based on D&D, with D&D style attributes you can raise every few levels and spells and feats *mostly* based on things you can do in D&D, with some exceptions. The warrior seemed to be fairly well equipped with abilities to be purchased in various combinations as more and more ability points were distributed, but the sorceress abilities were so costly as to require picking and relying on only a few spells, and planning which ones well beforehand. This left one to sit through many levels hoarding points and was not especially enjoyable. Still, the spells themselves are staggeringly effective.
The other thing to note is that while you will encounter a wide variety of equipment, you will likely be somewhat startled to note that, unlike games like Diablo, you will almost never find items that are worth using over what you can purchase from the stores. Thus looting becomes a matter of filling your weight allotment (mercifully, Diablo-style slots are not present in this game), recalling to town, and selling it all until you can afford the gear you crave.
The story, as mentioned, is not really exceptional, but it's more and better told than many competitors. The ending will likely come as something of a shock.
Once you've beaten the game, you can import your characters onwards into another difficulty, or attempt the punishing Gauntlet mode, where a certain very famous Forgotten Realms character can be played in a timed run through a very dangerous area. Success unlocks the Extreme difficulty, which brings the experience to a whole new level.
All in all, BG:DA is a quality dungeon crawl that will likely provide weeks of monster-bashing, chest-looting enjoyment. And remember what I said: it's better with a friend.