The Sims with an RPG element rather than RPG with a Sims element like the original. It's 2 easy and 2 short.
The developers really lost their way with Fable 2. They made a Sims game with a poor RPG element to it rather than the RPG with a poor sims element Fable was. By this I mean in Fable you spent all your time doing quests and occasionally stopped to buy things make families, have affairs or trade. In Fable 2 you do the opposite and is very geared towards creating businesses, interacting, making families and generally exploring.
This wouldn't be so bad if the Sims and RPG element was well balanced but it isn't. It is far too easy to make money and you'll be absolutely loaded within a few hours of playing the game. This effects the RPG side because you get the best weapons/clothes etc very early on in the game.... so why then would you need any more money???
You can carry on and buy houses and businesses but there is really not much point so you end up doing all the missions which barely take a few hours so you then try to lose your virginity and murdering everything that moves before doing the side quests like gargoyles etc which is probably the only fun part.
THE most stupid thing about the game though is the fact you can't die. It makes it ridiculously easy and means leveling up is pointless. Why level up your health if you can't die anyway? You are suppose to lose XP when your health gets to zero but it's that little it's pointless.
Although the dog is a great idea it's Crap with a capital C and I know of many people who have tried to kill it!! It's almost as pointless as the level up system. It finds treasure for you but ultimately ruins the 'exploring for yourself' element, it's suppose to fight but pretty useless and it's that easy you don't need it anyway, when it finds dig spots it's very buggy and may take 10-20 secs for it to show you the dig spot even when it's on top of it and generally it's just a pain in the butt rather than something you'll grow fond of.
A huge disappointment was the fighting system and multiplayer systems. The multiplayer is awful, you can't import your own character in fully and you're stuck playing on one screen which is incredibly fustrating as you're constantly trying to go different ways than each other. It also makes a fighter/gunner combination impossible. Why they didn't make it a proper 2 player game with split screen I dont know seems like they put it in there to capture a xbox live market but didn't care if it was unplayable.
Much was hyped about the new fighting system but ultimately is no different to Fable. You hack and slash all the time and occasionally kill someone by knocking them off a ledge or doing a combo move. You get more XP by doing things more 'skillfully' but the game is so easy it's pointless. The magic is just boring and mostly you will go all the way through the game not using it unless you make a specific effort to even then it's pretty useless.
The whole RPG element is awful really in fact you can't really call this an RPG anymore more just a hack N slash. This could have been such a good game if they concentrated on making it a challenging Sim/RPG rather than aiming at some teenage Sim market.
Fable made Fable 2 a must buy game but clearly now Fable 3 (if it comes) will be a 'wait and see' what the reviews say.