Two steps forward three steps back
Dragon Age II concentrates heavily on the world and how it reacts to you in the story, if your a mage, reactions in some encounters will be different or if you have a certain companion with you events can change. This addition is welcomed but feels more or less superficial with no real significance. Depending on your chat decisions (aggressive, neutral, polite) your character will change accordingly but again this feature feels like it is lacking refinement and has no real significance.
Companions are great and the comedy is better than Origins, which saddens me considering they also simplified companion interaction and left me wanting to get to know them more like my Origins companions.
The new combat system is a love/hate one. It is nicer but why change something so drastically when it worked so well in the first? Despite the new changes combat can be fun but you may on occasion shed a tear while reminiscing of Origins combat system.
Character textures look great, a huge improvement in every aspect and no real criticism here. The environments on the other hand seem to have been neglected and have no "depth" and ambiance with textures appearing to have been just slapped on.
All in all DAII is a good game but no great, it doesn't live up to expectations, hopefully Bioware will learn from this and find better direction for the 3rd game.