Don't believe the fanboy hype. Witcher 2 is so less frustrating and tedious as its predecessor.
I'm not going to get too into the story, because this is an RPG. Story is all it's about, and no matter how hard they try, RPG storylines can only be so original. Honestly, how many possible ways can you rehash saving someone/the world, defeating a dragon, etc., before you realize you don't play RPGs for the story anymore; you play it for the characters, and for the gameplay itself.
This is sadly where Witcher 2 falls flat on its face. The characters are so terribly cliche it's pathetic. Women are simple sex objects with little real personality, it's as if they all exist purely as nookie-on-the-go for Geralt, the 'hero' of the story. Whether or not they can fight is irrelevant. Geralt has moments that, I must admit, were endearing. Overall he's a very broody, emo little hunter of dark things, but he's also got a rampaging libido and tends to edge toward dry humor. It's unexpected in his type of character, and it was welcomed, but it wasn't enough. I was expecting a lot more depth, and I didn't find it.
But that could have been forgiven. Really, it could have been. I mean, cliche characters are part of the RPG experience, right? What can't be forgiven is the HORRIBLE gameplay. Dear God, how can anyone forgive this battle system? Anyone who's played the first one no doubt remembers the utter lack of intuitiveness that was the battle system. They changed that for Witcher 2. Now instead of the semi-automatic system, it's a spam fest of left click, right click, and an occasional 'Q' to cast a spell. Mostly though, you'll be spamming left and right click. For every enemy. The whole time. All the time. That's the battle system....left click, right click. Mind you, one has the ability to roll (spacebar) and parry (e) for as much good as it'll do you. You see, rolling as a dodging mechanism actually seems to leave you MORE open to attack, snapping you out of your animation and staggering for that split second, all that's necessary for everything else around you to slice you into ribbons. You can hold 'e' to block, but you'll never get in a hit that way. Which leaves you spamming, left click, right click.
Except, and here's the worst part, Geralt seems utterly incapable of realistically swinging his sword. He's surrounded by things that want to eat his face, but does he swing at them? Nooo...he's got to jump, flip and spin in the air like a faking fairy before slicing at something, and afterward he's got to flourish and pose and spin yet some more. Unfortunately, the time it takes Geralt to swing his sword once, everything else has already slashed at him 20 times. Worse yet, everytime you get hit, it knocks you out of the attacking animation. Pretty soon you catch on that the only time you get in a hit on the enemy is between their attacks when they stand around like retards waiting for you to hit them before jabs of their own. What is this? It feels...frighteningly turn-based? Oooooh you tricky little video game makers, you...making me think I was playing an action game. Really it's just he goes, then I go, then he goes, then I go....unless of course 'he' came with his friends, then it's just hold block indefinitely or slash once....run away...slash again....run away...and hope in the middle of one of those slashes they dont hit me, cancel my attack animation, leaving me back at square one.
Sounds like fun, doesn't it?
To make matters even worse, I kept hearing all kinds of hype about how this was going to be better than Dragon Age 2. DA2 messed up ~so badly~. How hard could it be to be better than a game that repeats the same two dungeons a hundred times? Witcher 2 is prettier, probably longer, and doesn't repeat the same instance constantly...but who gives a damn when it's not even playable? Utter trash. Terribly happy I played a friend's copy before buying my own.
That this got such high ratings shows the delusions of fanboism and the dregs that the RPG community has been reduced to. Honestly...