definitely overhated.
the gameplay was more enjoyable than Origins for me, the combat was faster, smoother and good looking, there is a lot of build diversity and the game was also much easier to get into something that was an priority to BioWare at the time and I think they have made it possible.
the three arc storyline set during 7 years of Hawke's life on Kirkwall was pretty interesting, the game gained an much tighter pacing as a result and the writing and characters throughout was pretty good, having an voiced and designed main character felt much more personal and enjoyable inside the narrative compared to Origins.
the presentation felt good most of the time, all the characters features great designs and the soundtrack is great though not as fantastic as in Origins.
the major flaw of DA2 is of course it's short development time, the game features copy-pasted locations for the entire game, the player will pass to the same looking caves, the same houses and dungeons and that can be definitely be attributed by the rushed development cycle at BioWare due to having to develop 3 different games at the time.
the spawning and wave based enemies does get annoying after a while though, exploration and combat loop gets a lot repetitive later on because of it.
but overall I think Dragon Age 2 is an great improvement over Origins simply because it actually got enjoyable gameplay and the story still have most of the qualities the previous game had while trying to do something new to the storyline's overall structure.
the gameplay was more enjoyable than Origins for me, the combat was faster, smoother and good looking, there is a lot of build diversity and the game was also much easier to get into something that was an priority to BioWare at the time and I think they have made it possible.
the three arc storyline set during 7 years of Hawke's life on Kirkwall was pretty interesting, the game gained an much tighter pacing as a result and the writing and characters throughout was pretty good, having an voiced and designed main character felt much more personal and enjoyable inside the narrative compared to Origins.
the presentation felt good most of the time, all the characters features great designs and the soundtrack is great though not as fantastic as in Origins.
the major flaw of DA2 is of course it's short development time, the game features copy-pasted locations for the entire game, the player will pass to the same looking caves, the same houses and dungeons and that can be definitely be attributed by the rushed development cycle at BioWare due to having to develop 3 different games at the time.
the spawning and wave based enemies does get annoying after a while though, exploration and combat loop gets a lot repetitive later on because of it.
but overall I think Dragon Age 2 is an great improvement over Origins simply because it actually got enjoyable gameplay and the story still have most of the qualities the previous game had while trying to do something new to the storyline's overall structure.