I'm at Act 3 and I've wandered off; I'm sure I'll finish it eventually.

Here are the problems.

Repeated dungeons leave nothing to the imagination and make questing boring.

The constant "find me an X" quests are mind-numbing.

The "choices" you make frequently have no effect on the game whatsoever.

The dialogue... oh, God, the dialogue. I do not want to be told specifically what phrases will make a person fall deeply in love with me. This is not how life works. I do not want to be confronted with three different ways to say "okay" and be told that I am being given a choice.

Obviously you don't buy Bioware games for the combat, but several people do. DA1 was marketed as a return to classical tactical RPG thinking, and it performed in that aspect admirably. Not so in DA2. You can't counter the invisible rogues who constantly backstab your weak mages, and your tanking characters' abilities have such long cooldowns that they're essentially pointless. Playing on harder difficulties isn't hard tactically; it's hard because the game is terribly designed. Instead of actually forcing you to adapt to various locations and strategically placing your party (remember, there are only about five stock dungeons you'll see in the game!), Bioware decided difficulty should be determined by ENDLESS WAVES SPAWNING OUT OF NOWHERE.

Oh man, that's not immersion-breaking at all. But hey, you get SUPER COOL FLASHY MOVES! That's awesome! (Yuck. )

And the story. The story is the most enraging part of it all. You have a fantastic setting with a wonderful, vibrant set of cultures. You create a city steeped in history and brewing with tension. And then you proceed to do absolutely fuck-all with it. What did you learn about Thedas from DA2? What was interesting? You learn a bit about the Qunari (which in my mind was the only interesting part of the game). The rest of the game is making money so you can go to THE DEEP ROADS omgz and dealing with MAGAZ AND TAMPLARZ HATAN EACH OTHAR.

I like things being set in cities. I adore internecine strife. There is so much depth that could have been done in this game. Instead, you get blood mages everywhere (for no reason), abominations even more everywhere (also for no reason and AGAINST ALL LORE, considering how abominations are monstrosities that destroy everything in their path), and instead of interesting characters behind it all, you get A LYRIUM IDOL DONE IT.

In every respect save graphics (and the game was so pitifully rushed even that took a patch), DA2 is far behind its predecessor. The companions are boring (except Varric, whom I do quite like), the quests are boring, the plot is virtually nonexistent, and the gameplay itself is incredibly repetitive.

I've been playing the Sims Medieval, and it's offered me more choice as to how to complete quests than Dragon Age 2. There's something horribly wrong with that.