I just finished Knights of the Old Republic 2 for the first time. I played KotOR1 when it was released but 2 got a bad reputation for bugs so I skipped it. Now there's a big patch to restore content and fix up bugs that rivals the patch for Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines. The publishers (specifically Aspyr?) are on the ball, too, and patched the game so it uses Steam Workshop which makes the restored content patch and even a few others very easy to install.
The graphics have held up fairly well. They certainly aren't great but you aren't going to feel like you're playing lego people. Just people with rather square jaws...
Some of the characters are quite good (HK-47 even gets a special mission all his own with the restored content) though some are pretty bland, too. That's not a big problem, just stick to the characters that interest you and ignore the others. The writing overall is pretty good and has a few spots where it's quite brilliant. They did an excellent job of writing around astromech beeping languages without resorting to subtitles.
What is a big problem is party AI. Each character is allowed to have two weapon sets but the AI is pretty stupid about which to use when. Aggressive melee characters can go running after the next spawn before you're ready, too, though this is a lot rarer than it was back in Neverwinter (enemies are further apart, I think). I also found I had to do a lot of command cancelling even for the character I was controlling as the system would automatically put in a 'standard attack' action every time I selected an enemy.
The other big problem with the game is balance. Some of the powers you can get (e.g. the high level force push that pushes every enemy around you) are very over-powered. Around two thirds of the way through the game, it got so easy that selling/upgrading items got pointless. Then, every now and again, the game would pull one of your characters out of the party and have them fight alone. That suddenly swung the other way for me as the game seemed very good and forcing my ranged specialists to fight melee characters at close quarters. The start of the game worked out great but it degenerated into snooze-fests with the occasional stab to the gut.
Overall I think the story makes the game worth it - especially for the price. Even when not on sale it costs just $10 and I got it on sale for $2.75. Plus, well, it's STAR WARS! The pew pew of blasters, the woohuuu of light sabers, the repeating loops of alien language... err, well maybe that last part wasn't so good.