Disappointing Game with undercooked elements making up the core of the experience.
Story:
Is bland, uninteresting, and lifeless. I scoring in this category may be harsh due to me playing ME2 prior to this game, but I expected a better story from an RPG. Yes, some NPC's are funny and the town can be interesting...at first. About six hours in, the becomes predictable, and since the game has such a weak main story, there is very little motivation to go beyond once the novelties wear off.
Gameplay
I had high hopes for the combat engine and the "do whatever you like" aspect of the game, and sadly, both let me down tremendously. The combat system starts off weak, then gets interesting with more moves, and finally boring and completely effortless. And though I sometimes enjoy being an unbeatable baddass in video games, I found it distracting in this title.
The "unlimited" freedom that this game offers also disappointed me greatly. The root of the reason is that the game lacks character. The citizens are colorful but repeated. The elegant economic system, which I initially thought interesting, is too easy to exploit. And getting married and having kids is not such a big deal as the developers made it out to be. It just seemed undercooked and no where near as complex as I had hoped.
Graphics
I hate to say it but Fable 2 has very little going for its graphics. The framerate is jaggy and gets in the way of heated battles. The art direction is typical 18th century/fantasy stuff, and is not interesting. And finally, the world is smaller than it initially seems, divided by long load times.
Conclusion
Fable 2 is a mediocre game, which I really wanted to like (hell I've tracked this game for 2 years), but ultimately came out with a bad taste in my mouth. Whether it is because I played this game after a near perfect titles like Mass Effect 2 and Suikdoen 2, I just couldn't bear to play through Fable 2 more than six hours. So in all, if your gaming preferences are anything like mine, stay away from this game. $20 may sound tempting but gamers like me will not enjoy this title.