a big stepback from the first game
Let's start off with the interface, they killed it, yes it has been "dumbed down" for consoles. Firstly there is no isometric view, so no tactical view. That also means that once you pause the game you can't move the camera around. Totally frustrating. Combat has been "updated" by making it more button spammy. I'm not opposed to change but I didn't have a problem with the combat style of the first game and think it felt alot better since it was slower. In light of all the other problems I feel this was a bad move. first person shooters have gotten alot faster over the years but it doesn't work with rpg's.
The monsters spawn system is also very annoying they just pop out of thin air around you. It makes tactical planning pointless when biowares idea of making the game hard it to just have waves of monsters just warping in from thin air. The harder difficulties also encourages cheap play. When you have to resort to kiting mobs around to win it doesn't give you much satisfaction, and also highlights how inept the enemy AI is. In the first game you won by careful spell and ability selection not cheesy exploitable methods.
There's also so few zones to visit and they are often repeated. You'll find yourself going 3 or 4 times back to the same small corridor lined area for another quest. It's also divided into "day" and "night" kirkwall which is just an illusion to make the game seem bigger even though it's all the same area. kirkwall is also a very stale, bland lifeless city. Which is where you'll be spending basically all your time too.
the inventory system has been extremely cut down as well. Most pieces of armor you find or buy can only be used by your character and not your companions, yes they have restrictions on who can wear what. There's even weapon restrictions for the classes, like varric for example cannot equip bows. Yes you heard that right, a rogue who is not allowed to equip a bow because he doesn't have the profeciency(and can't learn it either). So most of the loot you find is just going to be vendored.
The story is largely forgetful, most of your game is just spent doing totally unrelated quests to fill in the time. There's nothing epic about it, you feel like a small town sherrif just dealing with everyones minor complaints. It's disconnected and the ending is basically non-existant which we are going to have to pay in DLC to finish no doubt.
The companions are ok but again you have to little interaction with them. It's suppose to be over about a 10 year period but you'll find yourself barely interacting with them. You can only initiate coversations on a few occaisions, this isn't like the first game where you can have lengthy conversations at will.
The music not that great either, there was either nothing playing or they just re-used tracks from the first game but changed them slightly. DA2 takes about half the disk space of the first game. It's claimed because of improved texture compression but you only have to play the game to realize it's so much smaller in game play because of how much has been cut out.
I could probably go on for a few more pages but it's too depressing. I played the original dragon age through 5 times and I can't even bare going through this a second time. I can't recommend this game until it hits the bargain bin. It reeks of cost cutting and a rushed product to sell units on the dragon age name.