I never got around to posting my demo impressions, so here is a quick re-cap.
PS3: the graphics fidelity was nice. The landscapes obviously looked like something out of a PS2 shovelware title, but the character models and select animations were smooth. Almost no visible jaggies.
PC: downloaded it from Steam. Thought I could crank all the settings to maximum and run it without problems (multi-core CPU and a 460 GTX which usually allows me to run anything I want at maximum settings). Unplayable. Framerate below single digits. The ground is covered with black triangles. The game looks horrible. Now I see that the cutscenes are not rendered in-engine. Which blows.
Overall and game play: meh. Your dude just stands there executing the same slashing animations over and over again. There is no real sensation of your character hitting the enemies, it is more like shadowboxing. You wait for the small hotbar icons to tick down and then you can smash buttons to see the same boring animations all over again. Some cute battle tactics elements that seem to work. Dialog trees look to be more boring than in ME2, and what's worse, I cannot see the benefits of going one way or the other (read: it is not made clear what these choices effect in the end and I cannot see immediate disdain or loyalty from my party members while choosing to go one way or the other). Just to make it clear, there are three options: peaceful, theatrical/comedy and hostile/violent. The demo had no indications on what these things mean. The running animations look like the characters are constipated.
I suppose I would like to play it simply because there has not been a good fantasy and lore RPG in a while and DA2 has at least some manner of polish. Missed my signature edition pre-order window though so I might need to get a regular edition.
Oh, and awesome OP.
