While Neverwinter Nights 2 succeeds in holding true to the DnD ruleset, the game is hampered by bugs and linearity.
As you and your companions go through their adventures, they will gain experience, better equipment, and most importantly, levels. Building characters in Neverwinter Nights 2 is genuinely fun, and the large variety of feats, skills, races, and classes offers a wide assortment of possible character types.
While the artificial intelligence in the game usually does its job well, displays of mind-boggling stupidity on its part are all too common. Your allies will frequently get stuck in doorways, fail to navigate around your other allies to attack that enemy five feet away from them, sometimes cease to follow the player, and will charge alone, head-on into a large group of enemies. This can make the game downright frustrating at times.
While the combat of the game is good and entertaining, some of the quests and missions you undertake can really be a drag. In one quest, where you are charged with escorting a noble to safety, you end up fighting approximately twenty identical groups of assassins, and it was getting boring by the fifth.
Graphics: The graphics, while good, are nothing amazing. Even worse is the fact that the obscene system requirements for the game in no way match the final graphical output. Still, the game does feature some nifty fire and spell effects, which are genuinely well-done and impressive.
Sound: The first thing you might notice about Neverwinter Nights 2's sound is that a great deal of it was imported from the original Neverwinter Nights. Most of the music, the voice-packages for the main character, and even sound effects were imported from the original game. There was nothing wrong with the original soundtrack and voice packages (the high-strung evangelist is still my favorite), but it is still somewhat disappointing to hear the same stuff that you are already so familiar with.
The voice-acting is quite good, though there are some notable characters that sound subpar or downright annoying (Daeghun in particular grates on my nerves).
Value: The main campaign is quite linear. The plot itself offers very little in the way of freedom or variation, and even some of the maps are blatant handholds that only offer one way to proceed through hordes of unavoidable enemies. Some dialogues and situations you could use to avoid combat and glean information are present, and the majority are well done. It is a shame that in a game that is supposed to be a role-playing game, such options are so rare, and that most everything is solved by straight-up combat.
Luckily, the game comes with a toolset, multiplayer, and a dedicated community that continually pumps out content. When you eventually tire of the main campaign, you will find plenty of new adventures waiting for you.
Tilt: The bugs in particular are what really drove this down for me. If they had been properly gotten rid of, the game would have been a far more enjoyable experience. Additionally, with the linearity of the main campaign, I feel like I will have to rely upon user-created modules to provide a good role-playing environment.
Final Thoughts: Given Obsidian's track record with Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2, Obsidian really needs to focus upon squashing the bugs that are rife in their games. Doing so would go a long way to bring up their games from their current level of mediocrity to genuinely good. If this game offered nonlinearity as well, it would be truly great. Here's to hoping an expansion or another offering by Obsidian turns out better.