A little while back I managed to play through Dragon Age: Origins on the PC and suffice it to say, I didn't love it. (I posted what I thought of the game here.) In short, Origins for me was a boring slog with a horribly generic story, crappy battle system and an unremarkable everything else. And I was unsure whether I wanted to continue with the series. I heard all the hate regarding DA2 but for some reason I decided to give the game a shot...and boy, am I glad I did. This game is superior to Origins in just about every way.
The story - the game's plot is infinitely better than Origins' blatant ripoff of the LOTR plot (or similar) and deals with things on a smaller scale, broken up into 3 acts, which are nicely tied up by the end.
The battle system - this was a huge upgrade from the first game, in which I absolutely loathed combat. Here everything is more responsive and has a nice feel to it. No longer does it feel like I'm playing World of Warcraft or something.
The characters - I really loved the characters in this one - especially Varric, Merrill and Isabella. The banter and the dialogue was especially great, as was the ability to choose a "witty, sarcastic" response in most situations. It was genuinely humorous a lot of the time and you had the option of not taking everything so damn seriously, which was a nice departure from the mostly dull, serious and pedantic characters/situations in Origins. The fact that your main character is no longer a mute makes a pretty huge difference.
The visuals - yes, I know it's the more recent game but Origins looked so ugly, bleak and dreary. DA2 has got a nice amount more detail and color (even though it still is a bit too brownish).
The dungeons - I hated how long and time-consuming the dungeons were in Origins. DA2 fixes that with shorter dungeons that I definitely appreciated. Sure, more variety in design would've been nice, but I didn't mind one bit.
Little things like no longer having random battles when moving from one location to another or telling me which location has which side quest associated with it made things more enjoyable in general. Do I wish there was more than 1 city? Absolutely. But it really isn't a dealbreaker by any means. I even played through Mark of the Assassin and Legacy of the Memento DLCs, which were pretty good for the most part and have some cool boss battles. So to sum it up, Dragon Age 2 is a great game, which I can't really say about Origins. And no, I'm not crazy.
EDIT: Not sure where the comments about "press 1 button to win" are coming from. I played as a mage on the PC, and I sure as hell was pressing more than 1 button...
The story - the game's plot is infinitely better than Origins' blatant ripoff of the LOTR plot (or similar) and deals with things on a smaller scale, broken up into 3 acts, which are nicely tied up by the end.
The battle system - this was a huge upgrade from the first game, in which I absolutely loathed combat. Here everything is more responsive and has a nice feel to it. No longer does it feel like I'm playing World of Warcraft or something.
The characters - I really loved the characters in this one - especially Varric, Merrill and Isabella. The banter and the dialogue was especially great, as was the ability to choose a "witty, sarcastic" response in most situations. It was genuinely humorous a lot of the time and you had the option of not taking everything so damn seriously, which was a nice departure from the mostly dull, serious and pedantic characters/situations in Origins. The fact that your main character is no longer a mute makes a pretty huge difference.
The visuals - yes, I know it's the more recent game but Origins looked so ugly, bleak and dreary. DA2 has got a nice amount more detail and color (even though it still is a bit too brownish).
The dungeons - I hated how long and time-consuming the dungeons were in Origins. DA2 fixes that with shorter dungeons that I definitely appreciated. Sure, more variety in design would've been nice, but I didn't mind one bit.
Little things like no longer having random battles when moving from one location to another or telling me which location has which side quest associated with it made things more enjoyable in general. Do I wish there was more than 1 city? Absolutely. But it really isn't a dealbreaker by any means. I even played through Mark of the Assassin and Legacy of the Memento DLCs, which were pretty good for the most part and have some cool boss battles. So to sum it up, Dragon Age 2 is a great game, which I can't really say about Origins. And no, I'm not crazy.
EDIT: Not sure where the comments about "press 1 button to win" are coming from. I played as a mage on the PC, and I sure as hell was pressing more than 1 button...
I thought Morrigan and Alistair were excellent. The rest of the cast were entertaining enough too, outside of maybe Wynne who was boring. In comparison I didn't give a damn about the majority of DA2's cast.
