It's....not Baldur's Gate. That's the hardest thing to get past. Once I accept that Dragon Age isn't really related to BG, I can look at it on it's own merits; really, Dragon Age has more in common with Mass Effect. Come to think of it, Dragon Age feels/plays a LOT like Mass Effect, but instead of romancing aliens, cold-hearted business women, or space-suited refugees, you get to try out dwarfs, elves, rogues of questionable intent, and shape-shifting mages.
The biggest complaint I can levee against Dragon Age is the camera: you no longer have the traditional top-down view, so no pulling way out and surveying things; instead, you're kinda stuck in basically a 3rd person view (even indoors, which is really, really annoying sometimes!). Outside/cities aren't as bad though, and you do get used to it.
The inventory system is kinda nice: as you pick things up, some things are already labeled as 'loot', and other things you pick up, if you already know you don't want/can't use them, (but you want to keep them to sell for profit), you can tag as 'junk', and when you get to a shop you click 'sell all junk' and it's done. Makes managing your backpack much more manageable.
The conversation wheel is....well, it's a direct rip of what Mass Effect uses. It's even color-coded so you always know the implied intent of what you're saying. Really feels like the devs are holding our hands? There's even a pink color so you know if you're initiating a romance or not...I kinda liked the interplay of not knowing, the thrill of 'oh hey! that worked!'
Quest are...well, easier to follow anyway. In your journal, you select a quest you want to work on, and go to your map, and a glowing arrow shows you which way to go, and the characters you need to talk to are highlighted. There's really no guess-work to it. (even your little on-screen mini-map has arrows to guide you). In the world map, when you hover over a location, any quest related to that area pop-up so you always know what you can do in that area.
Overall, Dragon Age II feels dumbed down. It's like when you read a book, and the author goes into great detail about the plot, over and over, completely overemphasizing the most mundane plot points, till you realize, 'wow - this guys must think everyone else is a complete idiot.'
It's not a bad game, but it does feel like it got the console treatment. It's no Baldur's Gate type of RPG. Heck, they could just about make this into a first person hack n slash.
They do a good job of telling the story (which takes place simultaneous to the events of the first Dragon Age as far as I can tell).
Sorry so many people aren't finding Dragon Age II to be to their liking: I guess people were expecting one kind of game, and Bioware gave them another?
