A boat load of watering down. In fact, a sunken ship
Having touched on characters slightly my real problems of the game start occurring within the first hour and there are 3 very jarring problems for me. Firstly, and a reason I loved DA:O, is that the unique opening stories are missing. This was a brilliant touch to RPG's and the greatest innovation in customisable character story telling I've ever seen. Every time you started a new character you felt you started a whole new story because you did, for the beginning at least, but for any fan of role playing or someone who just enjoys making up a story for there characters this was a magical first in video games (as far as I am aware anyway). When I was a mage I'd start in the mages tower and as a dwarf I'd start in the mines but there was prologue stories there to do as well. How such a great feature got chopped in DA:2 can only be considered as watering down to me. I saw this in ME2 and it was acceptable but here there is such a unique story telling setup and brilliant design being destroyed to chuck out the next title quicker. I'd like to say that was the end of the problems but on the same vain even selecting what race you want to be was cut from the game. Sure the first game had crap racial bonuses but I did enjoy being able to be a dwarf and elf at least.
Moving on though, I can say after destroying my choice of race and the most unique facet of the original game we can move onto the in game elements such as the combat. What a horror, the old system was not perfect but at least it replicated excellent titles like Star Wars: Knights of the old Republic whereas the new combat system felt more than anything to me to be a clone of Ninety Nine Nights 2. With the only exception being you can hold down one of the triggers to select the next 3 abilities. The combat as a rogue was thoroughly unsatisfying with quick as lightning slashes not even touching an enemy but still (in game) being counted as a hit while the enemy stands there not reacting to a flurry of life threatening stabs and abilities that made me want to slap my face into my palm. I love magic and rarely complain but I felt the shift from a somewhat realistic combat system to my rogue being able to quickly teleport behind people 10 feet away for a backstab was a bit beyond belief when I know they'll never have this ability of teleportation during cut scenes where the big bad guys walk away after telling me I am doomed. The combat just reeked of a poor design, between overly quick, and I'd like to say spastic, movements and enemy that don't react to blades in the face through to abilities charging much quicker than the previous title just for spam heavy combat with little strategy. Even the enemy came in flood after flood in a predictable and tiring manner.
Quite how Bioware could turn a potentially great series in a limp and sinking ship is quite beyond me as I believed them to be a far better company. I hate to say it but I believe there is some EA in my Bioware soup and I don't blame EA as it wouldn't be fair to cast blame for Bioware's failures onto others. For me Bioware took the old school approach and revolutionised it last time, but then this time went for the modern approach and fell well below the bar. I'm sure DA:2 has some positive aspects like being able to decide your own path but to be honest it's a path I got turned off of long ago and believe would be only a waste of my time to explore it's depths.