Soooo. Finished DA:O Awakening. Gotta say the ending got me by surprise, I thought there'd be something more substantial instead of 'kill boss; game over.' But all in all a mildly enjoyable expansion. Though man does this game have a lot of bugs O_o Think I'll wait for DA2 to go on sale before grabbing it.

It's on sale on Steam right now.

Just played through DA2 on nightmare.

Game was horrible. Lazy writing, wasted opportunities, laughable gameplay . I basically bugged my way through a multitude bosses. The two main bosses in the deep roads were the most easily abused by using Varric (any ranged character will work) to shoot at them through a door where they cant harm you. I mean seriously? Not to mention resorting to the age old (and I mean age old, Neverwinter Nights 1 and beyond) trick of having a boss chase one character around while you have another shooting him.

Oh, not to mention your sister suddenly contracts the darkspawn disease out of nowhere. Whats that? You have to pull lame emotional punches that dont make any real sense? OK!

Not to mention that Anders is your only real healer. Not to mention that Aveline is the only real viable tank option. You joking? For real?

Not to mention that Varric and Merrill are the only semi-tolerable characters. The rest are garbage.

I'm angry.

I agree fully, however I didn't waste my time to finish the game. Im still rather irritated that I spent my money on this crappy game.

I thought DA2 was sub-par after what was setup by Origins. It's like a movie with a mediocre sequel. Overall, Dragon Age: Origins was an A. Dragon Age II was a B-. I enjoyed it, but it was just sub-par. I hope the DLC helps with that. I suspect rushing the game for an 18 month development cycle hurt. (I'm surprised nobody mentioned the recycled areas). But I'm NOT angry like Bali and Seraku, since I still enjoyed myself, and it was money worth spending for me since I cared more about the story and the world than the gameplay, I guess.

It looks like people are happier with The Witcher 2. I played that. It gets a B+ from me--not as Epic and overall satisfying as DA:O, but a better experience than DA2.

I liked the original story of DA:O, thats why I was so angry with DA2. In DA:O, the story is held together by the fact that you have this epic goal of rallying together various factions to defeat the blight, while having adventures along the way. In DA2 you just have this disjoined set of episodes that when put together, dont make a whole lot of sense and dont really build on each other in the most interesting of ways. It could have been so much better. And did all the Qunari really have to have the exact same face? I think there were 2 Qunari facial models all told.

I sided with them for almost all my decisions, and in the end there was no dramatic conclusion, they didn't come back in Act III. What is this book and why should I care? Isabella just escapes again and steals the book? So basically everything I went through, everything they went through, was ultimately pointless? Act II was entirely pointless. In Act III we are finally introduced to Orsino and Meredith, two characters we haven't met but are supposed to care about. What the hell? A love affair with that terrible character Fenris only gets a single-line mention at the end of the game? Oh Varric, you are free to go - its not like this conversation was building to anything cool. Sorry if you thought that was the case. Derp.

I understand Bali, and I agree it was sub-par. Bioware's quick turnaround schedule really hurt it IMO. I only hope either DLC for DA2 or the (hopefully) Eventual DA3 turns this around. Sales seem to be half what DA:O was. And I agree Act 3 is pretty weak--plus at the very least, we should have found out just want that Macguffin the final badguy used (and was the subject of the end of Act 1) meant in general.

There's a lot of fan polarization on this. And BW is going to face serious competition this year in the FRPG category from The Witcher 2, Skyrim, Dungeon Siege 3, Torchlight 2, etc. (It's a great year for games).

I just hope they get a chance to turn it around, that world has so much potential.

I wont be happy with DA3 unless the warden and the champion are allies. These heroes are given personalities based on the choices you made in 1 and 2. Brought together by a third and final main character, you have characters from both games interacting in (hopefully) in the mage/templar war and maybe even Tervinter to take down Morrigan or something.

Mage templar war. Pfah. You mean templar hunt. Kill the tin-cans. This roving band of magical firepower cannot be stopped.