I've played the game on a friends PC today, he used some trick to unlock it at the US time.
1. The game is massively simplified.
2. There isn't any tactical view or much point in playing it tactically anyway.
3. It's way to easy unless you play on nightmare.
4. The loot/inventory system is dumbed down.
5. Dungeons are reused.
6. Lacks epicness
Now I'll elaborate.
1. Get one thing straight, this game is nothing like DA1, while DA1 appealed to the hardcore classical RPG gamer this game is built for the console/action crowd. Remember all the wonderful books in DA1 telling you all about the lore, telling you all sorts of interesting things, well thats all gone. Remember the massive variety of environments, thats gone to. While the combat animations are nice, I actually prefer the older more realistic slower ones from DA1, DA2 seems more like a ninja gaiden game at times. Oh also warriors can't dual wield and you already know they removed origins and forced you to play as a human. They've also massively simplified all the passive skills like herbalism and removed the others, though I don't care so much for that. Branching dialogue trees are also gone, but again, you already knew that.
2. There's very little point in playing it tactically. In DA1 when you had a fight you could see what you were up against, in DA2 many fights involve waves, some did in DA1, but that was more events than every other fight. Because of this you don't really know what your going to be facing so theres no point in being tactical, furthermore cooldowns are so fast and energy and stamina seem to be less of a problem so you can spam away to your hearts content.
3. FF only has any effect on nightmare mode, and even on hard the game is still easy and creates no challenge at all. And as I previously said mana/stamina aren't an issue meaning you can spam attacks.
4. You can only entirely control the loot of Hawke, most of your partymembers you can change the weapons of (except the dwarf varric) but the rest you can't change apart from purchasing upgrades for their armour, which I find much much less enjoyable / satisfying than building up piles of loot and equipping accordingly.
5. The entire game takes place in Kirkwall apart from a few segments, Kirkwall is large and split into 5 distinct areas but throughout the 10 years nothing really changes so you tread through the same areas alot!, the dungeons are reused multiple times as well which I really really hate.
6. Yeah, thats a killer for me, the reasons above contribute to this.
- This game is dumbed down made for the console market and offers very little sense of reward to any classical RPG gamer. It's a stepback in every way from the original apart from the graphics. It's still enjoyable but a huge letdown from what should have been the next in a great series. I really dislike the direction they have taken the game, I can see why the lead designer quit.
Don't get me wrong, it is a good game, but for me it's a huge letdown. The whole ppint of DA1 was to be a classical hard western RPG filled to the brim with details with fights that challenged you, why oh fucking why has DA2 become this! There are already enough games like it, why change the last remaining cRPG into one.
Edited by Ion Cannon!, 10 March 2011 - 03:05.